Lesson's Learned
by clp66
Summary: Part IV in the Susan Chronicles Story. Susan's is going through a rough time. House investigates the cause of this sudden change in Susan and learns of her unpleasant past.
1. Chapter 1

_This is the fourth installment in the Susan Chronicles series. The timing of the story is sometime in the middle of season seven, although "Family Ties" has not yet occurred. I hope you enjoy the story and if you don't mind to leave a review from time to time, that would be most welcome._

_Disclaimer: I don't own House or any of the House characters. Those belong to David Shore and company. I do however own all the OC's._

Lessons Learned

By clp66

Chapter One:

House poured his concentration into the textbooks open on his desk. Open on his computer desktop was an article in JAMA. House read a couple of paragraphs in the text book, turned back to the article displayed on the computer and then back to the text. He heard a noise and looked up as Susan walked in his office. She shook her head no as she sat down in the chair in front of his desk. "Damn," he said. House took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair in exhaustion. He had been up for over 36 hours trying to solve his patient's puzzle.

"You need to get some rest," Susan said, "You're too tired to think straight."

"The answer is here, I just have to find it," he said. "You go home; I'll see you in the morning."

Susan shook her head, "I'm part of the team. As long as the team is here, I am too."

House was about to retort when Chase walked in the door, "The patient just crashed again. We've stabilized him for now, but I don't think it will last for long. Masters and Foreman are monitoring the patient."

"What are we missing?" House asked nobody in particular. Chase and Susan fell silent as Taub entered the room having stopped at the nurse's station outside the patient's room to document the patient's chart.

Several moments passed when Susan broke the silence, "Have we figured out what he is lying about?" As all eyes turned to her she continued, "It's your mantra – everybody lies. Either the patient is lying or the symptoms are lying," she paused then continued, "Maybe not every symptom is related to whatever is making him sick. What do you have if you eliminate symptoms systematically?" When nobody said anything Susan apologized, "I'm sorry – I guess I'm just talking to hear myself talk. Let me know if you need me to do anything," she said as she got up to leave.

House stared after her as she walked out the door. After she left the office, House got up from his chair and walked into the conference room; Taub and Chase followed and sat down around the table. He pulled out the white board from where it was stored in the corner. He drew three lines top to bottom and a horizontal line through the middle of the board making a total 8 boxes on the board. In the top left box he listed all the patient's symptoms. In the next box, he wrote all but the first symptom. In the next box he wrote all but the second symptom and continued in this manner until each box was filled with the patient's symptoms minus one and then sat down. Foreman and Masters walked in the room joining House, Chase and Taub at the conference room table, all of them staring at the white board. After several moments Foreman suggested a disease for the third set of symptoms – House got up and wrote it in that box. Taub and Chase simultaneously suggested another disease that fit the symptoms in the 5th set. Foreman suggested another for the symptoms in the 4th set and Masters had an alternate theory for that same set of symptoms. The team continued in this manner until each set of symptoms had at least one condition associated with it. After a time, the team fell silent having exhausted every idea. House started going through the various conditions one by one, eliminating as many as possible and eventually narrowed down all the possibilities to two and Foreman pulled out his phone.

"Seriously? – that's all you need ran?" Susan said after Foreman requested the test. "OK, I'll have the results in about a minute, do you want to hang on or shall I call you back?" Susan hung up the phone and pulled the most recent serum specimen she had pulled just two hours earlier from the patient out of the refrigerator. She programmed the instrument to run the test and within 30 seconds had a result. She couldn't believe that all they needed was the most recent sodium level to make the final diagnosis after everything they had struggled with. She called Foreman back with the results which confirmed the disease.

Foreman hung up the phone having conveyed the results and the rest of the team filed out of the office to start treatment. Later in the locker room as they were getting ready to leave Martha said, "That was an interesting analysis. I would never have thought to start systematically eliminating symptoms," she said.

"None of us did, sometimes we get so focused on everything we are seeing that it's hard to look outside the box to other possibilities," Foreman said.

"It's a good thing that House thought of doing that or we likely would have lost the patient tonight," Martha added.

"House didn't think of it either, he had a little help," Taub interjected.

Foreman nodded his head having figured out where House received his epiphany. "If he's not careful, she's going to end up replacing Wilson as his epiphany source."

"Nah, I don't think anybody will ever replace Wilson for that," Chase said.

MDMDMDMDMD

Susan unlocked the door to her apartment and went inside for the first time since the she left yesterday. Too tired to even fix herself anything to eat, she made her way to her bedroom to ready for the night. As she walked in her room, she looked at the empty king size bed and sighed. She missed his presence. She would have loved nothing more than to fall asleep in his arms tonight after such a long day. She supposed she should downgrade her bed to a double, she certainly didn't need a king size bed for just her, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. As she looked down at her left hand at the wedding ring she still wore, she wondered how long it would be, if ever, that she would get over the pain of his death. Guilt gripped her as she remembered a particularly rough patch in their marriage where she contemplated how much easier it would be if he just wasn't there anymore. Susan and Jeff had been married for over twenty years and of course she knew that all marriages had ups and downs, but about halfway through their marriage it was all she could do not to walk out the door for good. The only thing that kept her from doing it was her personal beliefs in regard to divorce and of course, she did not want to put their daughter through that kind of anguish, so she persevered and eventually things did improve somewhat. Now he was gone and she was alone. Well, not really alone – she had her daughter and her new/older brother – but she didn't have anybody to come home to on really long days. There was nobody to talk to about her day, nobody to hold her when she needed held, nobody to caress her and whisper sweet nothings in her ear, nobody to love her romantically. _Romantically? _She was deluding herself. There wasn't a romantic bone in Jeff's body, but she still missed him so much. Of course, if he were still here, she wouldn't have moved to New Jersey and she wouldn't have met Greg. She wouldn't trade her brother for anything. A lone tear made its way down Susan's cheek with all the conflicting thoughts and emotions running through her mind as she lay down to sleep. Tomorrow she told herself, tomorrow after work she would go shopping for a new bedroom suit. It was time.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two:

"How's the patient?" Susan asked when Dr. House walked into the lab the next morning.

"He'll make it," he replied.

Susan nodded, "Good, I'm glad."

"You don't look glad," House said.

"Oh, I've just got my mind on other things," Susan said.

House waited for her to finish her thought and when it appeared that she wasn't going to voluntarily, he prompted, "like?"

"Jeff," she said.

"Your husband," House replied as confirmation. Susan had never mentioned her husband's name to him before, which did seem a little out of the ordinary he thought.

Susan nodded, "I miss his presence."

"That's a strange way of putting it," House said.

"Oh, we had our issues like every other couple, but we loved each other and his presence was a source of comfort to me, even if things had cooled down over the years." Susan explained.

"Cooled down? Why?" House asked.

"All relationships cool down over time, but in our case it started about 10 years into our marriage. Our daughter was eight and I had to work 60 hours or more per week at my job and when I was wasn't at work, I was taking care of her – getting her to and from her activities as well as doing all the traditional 'lady of the house' things, you know, cooking, cleaning, shopping and such, and I unintentionally put his physical needs on the back burner. Oh, I still performed my 'marital duties', but I was so exhausted that I wasn't all that – well, not as active as I should have been. Of course he didn't react well to that and accused me of putting my job and our daughter ahead of him. We argued and fought a lot during those years and I nearly left, but I decided to stick it out and things got better over time, especially after I was able to find a new position that didn't require me to be at work for so many hours, but the damage was done we never fully recovered what we had before. I tried to make it up to him, but by that time he wasn't really interested in me physically. I still loved him though and I took comfort in his presence even if there wasn't a lot of romance left."

"OK, so I know you stayed, why did he if he was that unhappy?" House asked.

"I'm not really sure to be honest. I know he loved me despite my 'inattentiveness' and he was a wonderful father to our daughter. I'm a decent cook and housekeeper and I really did try to take good care of him. Maybe it was easier for him to stay with me than to start over, I don't know. Whatever the reason, I'm glad he stayed. I was such a failure for letting things get to that point anyway, if he'd left, I'd have been totally devastated." Susan explained.

"Do you think there was someone else?" House asked wondering how Jeff could possibly have been uninterested in Susan.

"I don't think so; he did love me, but of course there's no way for me to know for sure. All marriages have ups and downs you know; it's just the way of things. The key is to stick it out and not give up at the first sign of trouble. If he hadn't gotten sick, I think we would have fully recovered. At least, I like to think that we would have," she replied.

House pondered over what Susan said for a moment and then asked, "How long's it been since you've had sex?"

This entire conversation had been rather uncomfortable and that question even more so; but after Susan recovered from the shock of such a blatant question, she thought for a moment, "Actually, it's probably been since before Dad got sick. Since I was an only child, I was the only one that could go help Dad and then after he passed, Jeff had his heart attack and wasn't able, so I'd guess just over two years now," she replied.

"There hasn't been anybody in all that time?" he asked incredulously.

"No, of course not," Susan replied. "Two years isn't really all that long, Greg. I loved my husband, but I screwed up and nearly destroyed my marriage. I'm not interested in making the same mistakes and I can't just have sex with somebody to satisfy a physical desire. I'm just not cut out that way. Intimacy isn't physical for me; I need an emotional connection. Besides, I'm in my mid-forties – not exactly in my prime and I'm definitely not turning any heads.

_Two years,_ House thought to himself and it had probably been much longer than that since she had actually gotten any real pleasure out of it given her description of her marriage. As much as she obviously loved him, Jeff was a selfish bastard. He obviously wasn't supportive of her when she had to work so much, he probably didn't even bother to help her with basic chores. It was no wonder she was exhausted. She couldn't or wouldn't see it and she blamed herself. Jeff should have supported her when she needed him instead of taking it out on her later by not seeing to her needs. House was a jerk and he knew it, but he took great pride in being everything Cuddy needed and desired behind closed doors. Susan could do so much better; she was worth it. House shook his head to clear it, he couldn't believe he was actually thinking this way – brotherhood had certainly made a difference in his attitude, at least where Susan was concerned.

"I'm sure you didn't come in here to talk about my love life or lack thereof, what's up?" Susan asked changing the subject.

"Cuddy asked me to tell you that Professor Hastings' retirement is scheduled for this Friday instead of three weeks from now, so you'll be taking over the nursing chemistry class starting Monday," he said.

"Oh, cool," Susan said, "I'll go see if I can meet with him this afternoon to see where he is with the class. I'm really looking forward to this. It's been a long time since I've taught; it'll be interesting to see if I can still keep the student's interest."

"I'm sure you'll do fine," House said as he got up to leave the lab.

As House walked back to his office his thoughts returned to his conversation with Susan. This was the second time she had alluded to not being what any man would want. Now he knew that it wasn't just a simple case of low self-esteem as he had thought earlier. Her late husband had done a number on her psyche. He wondered what it was that made her "not what her husband wanted physically." She was attractive and was completely oblivious to the stares she was getting; he'd seen her ogled by several men as she passed by. She was also smart and had a good personality. She could be a little curt at times, but that just comes with the territory of being intelligent. Any man with half a brain could overlook the occasional curt comment that comes from an attractive, but intelligent woman. Maybe that was it. There are a lot of men that are intimidated by smart women; maybe Jeff was no different or maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever it was, something had changed in Jeff and Susan interpreted it as a deficiency on her part. This had to stop.

MDMDMDMDMDMD

Susan walked in Professor Hastings' office and introduced herself. "So you're the 'ever so brilliant Susan' who has Cuddy fooled into thinking my presence can be followed so easily in the classroom." he said condescendingly.

Not understanding the comment and deciding not to take the bait Susan said, "I'm here to see where you are with the students so that Monday we can pick up right where you left off."

"Hmph, figure it out for yourself," he said as he tossed the text, notebook and grade book her direction.

Having been unable to catch so many things thrown at her at once, Susan knelt down to the floor to grab the books and notebooks that had fallen, "Just where a woman belongs – on her knees," he said.

Susan was rather taken back by his comment, but she decided not to give him the satisfaction of a retort and made her way back to the lab with the information. _What a jerk_, she thought to herself.

Back at her desk in the lab Susan opened the grade book first. As she suspected, the majority of the students in his class were female. While great strides were being made in the field of nursing, it was still primarily seen as a woman's job while men were still the majority of the doctors. As she suspected given Hastings' comment, the few men that were in the class had much higher grades than all the women. Well, not _all_ the women, there was one whose grade was pretty high. _What a jerk_, she thought to herself again as she considered why that one female student's grade was higher than the others. She looked at the class notes, it appeared that the students were studying oxidation and reduction at the moment and were half way through that chapter. It was Wednesday, and Monday would be here before she knew it, so she started working on her lecture notes. Since she hadn't taught this particular class before, she had to start from scratch on her lecture notes. She wanted to have 2-3 lectures prepared in advance of the lesson each time they met.

MDMDMDMDMDMD

House was in the clinic supervising Masters as she examined the patient, a toddler boy with an obvious ear infection. When she came to her conclusion that the child had an ear infection, Dr. House handed over the prescription he had already written to the mother. Masters wrote the diagnosis in the chart and signed it. Dr. House put his initials next to Master's and they moved on to the next patient. They continued in this manner for the next two hours. By the time they finished, Masters had seen 10 patients and had diagnosed all of them correctly. Of course it helped that they had all been pretty easy, mostly consisting of upper respiratory and ear infections, but it had been a good experience for her.

"Well, how'd I do?" Martha asked House as he made some notes in her student file.

"You should have been done an hour ago. I had each of these diagnosed as soon as they walked in the door, you wasted 10 minutes on each one," House said.

"I think it's important for a doctor to spend time with the patients, it makes them feel better about their care," she said.

"I think you're just….." he started to say when Susan walked in the clinic. "Any specimens," she asked.

"Not today," Martha said.

"Great," she replied, then looking over at Dr. House she asked, "Mind if I skip out early today?"

"Knock yourself out," he replied.

Susan went to the lab to get her things. She wanted to go by an office supply store to pick up some file folders, a small file cabinet, a new grade book and other supplies she thought she would need for her teaching responsibilities. Since she didn't have a real office where she could lock things up, she decided that she would be storing the majority of her class notes and files in the lab. There was enough room by her desk for one of those two drawer file cabinets. She also wanted to pick up a backpack so she could more easily cart her books and papers back and forth between home and work.

That evening Susan worked on organizing the materials for her class. She went through the lecture notes provided by Prof. Hastings. It appeared that he was one of those professors that preferred lecturing via PowerPoint presentations. Susan preferred a much more interactive lecture format. In her own experience, listening to PowerPoint presentation lectures tended to put her to sleep. Susan was an animated lecturer walking back and forth lecturing with her voice and her hands as she described the various chemical processes. She spent a lot of time working problems on the board in a stepwise fashion so that students could see the processes. Come Monday, it appeared the students were going to have to get use a completely different style. Finally it was time for bed. As Susan readied herself, she realized that she had completely forgotten about going to the furniture store to look for a new bedroom suit. "This weekend," she told herself, "I'll go this weekend and pick something out."

MDMDMDMDMD

"You're quiet tonight," Cuddy said.

"Thinking about Susan," House replied.

"Is she having personnel issues again?" she asked.

"No, not that I know of; I walked in on her in the lab while she was brooding about her late husband," he explained.

"I'm sure it takes a while to get over the loss of your spouse," Cuddy replied.

"We need to find somebody for her," House said.

"Since when do you play match maker?" Cuddy asked. "Give her time, she'll find somebody on her own. She's attractive and smart; I'm sure somebody will come along."

"Maybe," he replied.

A few moments later, Cuddy spoke up. "What about Wilson? Now that Sam has left, he's sure to be looking."

"I thought you said to leave it alone? And no, not Wilson; he may be my BFF, but I don't think he's her type and she's not needy enough for him anyway. Besides, he doesn't have a good track record and I don't want her to get hurt."

"Well, there's always Taub; now that he and Rachel have separated, he's available," Cuddy said with the corner of her mouth turned up.

"What did I say about not wanting her to get hurt?" House exclaimed before he saw the look on Cuddy's face and realized she was teasing.

Cuddy smiled, "You've picked up the protective older brother role fairly quickly. Don't worry House; Susan can take care of herself," she said as she leaned over to give him a quick kiss.

House put his arm over her shoulder, bringing her close as he kissed her forehead. After a few moments of silence he asked, "Cuddy, are you satisfied?"

"What do you mean, "satisfied"?" she asked.

"I mean, with me – with sex. Am I …. You know, taking good care of you?" he asked with a bit of trepidation. Personal conversations were never easy for him, but after his conversation with Susan, he needed to make sure.

"Do you really need to ask?" Cuddy asked

"Something Susan said made me think about it. I just want you to promise me that if I'm not meeting your expectations that you tell me," he said.

"House, I've told you before that you are the most incredible man I have ever known and that includes in the bedroom. You're not only all I need, you're all I desire," Cuddy replied as she gently kissed him on the cheek. "And on that note, it's late." She said huskily with a wink as she pulled him up from his sitting position and started to drag him to the bedroom.

"Hey, slow down! Cripple here," House said as he followed her down the hall.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three:

The rest of the week flew by and before Susan knew it, it was Monday. Susan had spent the weekend getting organized. She calculated scores from Professor Hastings' grade book for each student to see how each student was faring. A large number of them were failing the course which in Susan's opinion was the fault of the professor and not the students. She'd know more in a few hours. Class was at 10:00am and Susan arrived to work at 8:00. She had two hours to get ready for her day before she had to leave for class. When Susan walked in the lab and went to her desk, she had to smile. Sitting right in the middle of her desk was a large red apple, a brand new box of chalk, a ruler, two red pens and a box of dry erase markers. There was a post-it note next to the items – "Good luck on your first day – The Team" it read. That was sweet, Susan thought. She started her daily maintenance and QC routine for the lab and when she was finished it was time to head to class.

She walked in the classroom where the students were already gathered. "Good Morning," she said. There was no reply as the students all stared her direction. She went to the white board at the front of the class, wrote her name and turned to introduce herself to the students. She handed out her syllabus and went over it highlighting the important parts like how many tests there would be for the remainder of the semester and how she would calculate their grades. When she was discussing homework one of the students raised his hand, "We've never had homework in this class."

"Really? That's interesting, because in Professor Hastings' grade book, there are homework grades for each chapter," Susan replied.

"We haven't done any," the student re-iterated.

"Oh. Well, you'll be doing homework from this point forward," Susan said. The class groaned. "Homework is important in Chemistry. General Chemistry is essentially an applied algebra class when you get down to it, with chemical knowledge thrown in for good measure. You have to practice the problems in order to pass the tests, the best way to do that is with homework and I'm not going to waste your time with it. If I assign homework, then I'm going to give you a grade for it," she explained. Susan continued as she glanced at Professor Hastings' class notes, "I see that so far you've had one exam and that right now you are covering….Yes?" she asked as another student lifted her hand.

"We haven't taken any exams," the student said.

"No exams?" Susan repeated.

"No," each class member said nearly in unison.

"What have you been doing in class?" Susan asked.

The entire class started talking at once; Susan lifted her hands to silence them. She pointed to a young lady in the front row. "We haven't really been doing anything. Professor Hastings came in and just talked to us about random stuff," she said. The rest of the class muttered in agreement.

"So, you haven't been discussing Oxidation-Reduction?" she asked.

The answer was a mix of head shaking and mumbled No's.

"Humph," Susan thought. "Well, let's see what you do know," she said taking out the text. She started out with the first chapter in the text; there was some familiarity with the material in that chapter. She went through each section of each chapter until she got to the point that the students were completely unfamiliar with the material – which didn't take long. It seemed that Professor Hastings started out teaching the class for about two weeks, but as his date for retirement loomed closer, he quit teaching. The students didn't even have a basic understanding of what a mole was much less anything else. Why were there grades for everything in his grade book? She thought to herself – he must have been covering his tracks. Surely he knew his replacement would figure out what he had done.

Time for class was nearly finished. "Well, I guess starting Wednesday we'll review chapters one and two and I'll hand out a worksheet for you to do to prepare you for your first test that will be over the first three chapters. Friday we will start chapter three and your first exam will be the following Friday. We've got a lot of catching up to do, so be prepared to put your nose to the grind stone over the next several weeks until we get caught up. See you all Wednesday," she said dismissing the class.

Shaking her head Susan gathered her things and walked to the conference room where most of the team was gathered while she pondered the last hour. Dr. House was at the counter pouring a cup of coffee when she came in and sat down. "So how did it go?" Chase asked noticing the perplexed look on her face.

"They don't even know what a mole is," Susan replied with a blank look on her face. She suddenly focused on the team and continued, "He didn't teach them anything, but his grade book is full of scores. He has grades for homework, but the students say that they've never had any homework. He also has an exam and quiz grades, but apparently the students haven't taken any exams or quizzes. The semester is nearly half over and the students don't know anything. According to his notes, they were discussing oxidation-reduction. I guess I need to go talk to Dr. Cuddy." Susan started to get up to leave when Dr. Cuddy walked in handing over a file to Dr. House.

"You have a case," she said and then turned to Susan. "What do you need to talk to me about?"

Susan explained the situation and then Cuddy said, "I have every confidence that you can correct the situation," and then walked out without further word.

Susan turned around and sat down again. "She must have been expecting something like this," Susan said to no one in particular.

"Obviously," House said as he walked over to the white board.

Infant – 3 months, female

Birth wt/ht – 5 lbs 11 oz/21", full-term

Current wt/ht – 9 lbs/21.4"

Gastroesophageal reflux

Irritable

"Wow, she's really tiny," Susan said.

"The technical terminology is 'Failure to Thrive'," said House. "We don't have any more information that; she's in NICU. Do a physical examination and get some history and meet back here in an hour." The doctors and Martha headed off to NICU and Susan left to go to the lab. She wasn't going to be able to do anything until the fellows returned with more information.

Chapter 3 - continued

House barged in to Wilson's office, without knocking as usual, sat down on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. Wilson continued writing in the file he was working on. "Susan had her first day of class this morning," House said.

"How'd it go?" Wilson asked as he continued making his notes.

"Apparently the prof was a slacker and didn't teach anything. She's going to have to start from scratch," House replied.

Wilson looked up from his paperwork, "It's nearly half way through the semester; do you suppose Cuddy knew? Is that why she moved up his retirement date?"

"I haven't talked to her, but it seems likely. She does have her spies," he paused, "You checked out that new nurse in ICU yet?" he said changing the subject.

"With a bod like that? Who hasn't?" Wilson replied.

MDMDMDMDMD

Back in the lab, Susan was sitting at her desk preparing a new set of notes for the first two chapters in the text. _This was crazy_, she thought. She decided that she would spend all of Wednesday reviewing chapter one and two and start chapter three on Friday. It was going to be difficult on the students to have to learn this much material in such a short span of time, but she didn't have much choice in the matter. There was a certain amount of material that had to be covered in the semester to prepare the students for their next class, so everybody was going to have to work hard – and that included her. Susan received a text indicating that the team had returned.

Chase was updating House when Susan arrived in the conference room. "She's tachycardic and tachypneic and extremely pale, but she doesn't have any dysmorphic features and there wasn't anything else remarkable about her physical exam."

Taub handed over two specimen vials to Susan, "I went ahead and pulled blood so you can run a complete CBC and a metabolic panel. I think she's probably rather anemic." Susan nodded as she took the vials from him and got up. The differential continued as she left the room and headed to the lab. These two series of tests were fairly simple and it wouldn't take long to have the results. She decided to go to the main lab to run the CBC on their flow cytometer since hers only ran a three part differential. She really needed to get an upgraded version, but the board hadn't approved her lab for any new equipment.

"Hi Susan, what brings you down here today?" the tech asked.

"I need to borrow your flow cytometer," she replied.

"Chris is out of the lab at a meeting at the moment, so you're clear. I've got a batch ready to go if you want to add that one to it," she said.

"I would actually. Do you mind if I put this one at the front? House needs the results quickly. It's a baby in NICU," Susan asked.

"He always needs his results quickly, but sure – go ahead," the tech said.

Susan prepared the vial and put it in the front of the specimen feeder, "There's a reason for that you know," she said.

"Yeah, because he's an impatient pain in the ass and has a god complex," the tech said.

"All doctors have god complexes, and yes he is impatient – but you know he gets all the tough cases. Most of his patients have already been referred through several other doctors before they get to him, so they tend to be more critical," Susan explained.

"That's probably true, but you have a soft spot for him so you're a little biased," the tech said.

"Can't deny that," Susan said.

Five minutes later, the specimen analysis was complete. Susan verified the results and started toward her own lab for the metabolic study, "Thanks," she told the tech as she walked out the door.

"No prob; see you later," the tech replied.

Back in her lab, Susan ran the metabolic study and printed the results. She headed to the conference room with the printouts.

The team still sat around the table when Susan brought in the lab data. Foreman looked over the CBC report. "Red blood cell count is low, you were right about the anemia," he said as he looked over at Taub. "Her neutrophil and monocyte counts are low, but her lymphocyte count is high."

Chase had picked up the metabolic study, "Her electrolytes are unremarkable, but the CO2 level is only 16."

Looking at Susan, House said, "Run lactate and pyruvate tests and just for kicks and giggles, do a screen for sickle cell trait. The rest of you get a bone marrow biopsy." Everybody left for their assigned tasks and House went into his office to think. It wasn't long before his phone rang, it was the duty nurse in the clinic, "You were supposed to be here 30 minutes ago," she said.

"I need a nap, get somebody else" House replied.

"Well, these patients need to see a doctor and you're on the docket for today; nobody else is available" she replied. "Besides, if you don't show up I'll tell Dr. Cuddy and then she'll be on your tail."

"Promises, promises," House replied as he hung up the phone.

Actually, for some reason today he didn't mind. It was just the sort of mindless boring work that might help him solve this case. He'd leave Susan in the lab this time since she was working on the case and he didn't feel like listening to Masters today, so he headed down to the clinic alone.

House took the file for the first patient and headed into Exam Room I. A young man sat on the exam table and said, "I'm really sick."

Dr. House noticed he was sweating and was very pale, "What are your symptoms?"

"I have a headache and my stomach really hurts," the patient said as he stopped to wipe his mouth, "and I keep drooling."

"Any weakness?" Dr. House asked

"Yes," the patient replied.

"It's probably a GI infection, when did this start?" House asked

"Yesterday," he said.

House took his temperature, no fever. This wasn't the run of the mill clinic patient and might even be a little bit of a challenge. House had the patient lay back on the table so he could palpate his abdomen. As he pressed his hands against the patient's stomach, he felt something square under the patient's t-shirt. House pulled up the t-shirt and found a nicotine patch. "When did you quit smoking?" he asked as he removed the patch.

"I haven't had a cigarette in three weeks. I'm using the patch to help with the cravings, but I'm starting to have issues," the patient said.

"Issues?" House asked

"Well, the package says to put a new one on every day and I'm running out of places to put them," he replied.

House rolled his eyes and told the patient to sit up. He removed the patient's shirt revealing numerous patches all over the patient's torso. Well so much for thinking this might be an interesting clinic patient. "Smoking is better for you than what you just did to yourself you idiot. Nicotine poisoning can kill you."

House left the room and sent a nurse in to remove the patches from the patient. "Make him strip down and get every patch off him – and wear gloves."

House grabbed the next file and went into Exam Room II.

MDMDMDMDMD

Susan set up the chemistry analyzer to run Lactate and Pyruvate as House ordered. Just as she was putting the specimen on the analyzer, Foreman walked into the lab with the bone marrow biopsy and handed it to Susan. "We couldn't do a full biopsy on the infant; see what you can get out of this aspirate."

"Will do," Susan said and walked over to counter that included a vacuum nozzle as Foreman left. Opening the cabinet below, she pulled out a small cylindrical funnel and a base with a glass frit filter. She put a membrane over the glass frit and dampened it with buffer before attaching the funnel over it with a clamp. She put the entire funnel apparatus in the top of an Erlenmeyer vacuum filter flask and hooked the glassware up to the vacuum line without turning on the vacuum. Having done that, she put more buffer in the funnel so that the membrane would remain damp while she prepared the specimen.

Dr. Foreman had brought the aspirate to her in a sterile conical 15mL tube. Susan added a few milliliters of sterile filtered PBS buffer to the tube and gently agitated the tube to suspend the cells and then filled the tube completely with more buffer and agitated the tube again.

Having created her cell suspension, Susan then walked back over to the counter where the vacuum and filter apparatus was set up. She turned on the vacuum slightly so that the buffer that was sitting in the funnel filtered through the membrane. She then poured half the cell suspension into the funnel and filtered it through, the membrane catching all the cellular debris, and cut off the vacuum so that air wouldn't dry out the membrane. She set the remaining cell suspension aside and took apart the filter apparatus. She removed the membrane from the funnel with a pair of forceps and laid the membrane upside down on a glass microscope slide. She then removed the membrane from that slide and touched it to second slide. She sprayed both slides with a fixative and put them in a rack to dry. She repeated the process with the remainder of the cell suspension, a second membrane and two more slides. While the slides were drying, Susan prepared her staining station for a Pap stain. Once the slides were ready, she started the staining process on the first two slides and kept the second two slides for later, in case they needed to look at something else.

Looking through the microscope, Susan noted that the cellularity of the specimen was fine. Unfortunately, she wasn't going to be able to be of much help in the interpretation of this one. She wasn't nearly as familiar with cytology as she was histology. Certainly she recognized the various cell types, but she was unfamiliar with morphology details. Susan hated to fail House at all, so she decided to be pro-active and created smears from the whole blood she had used to run the CBC earlier. That way if the doctors needed to see the red blood cell morphology as well, it would be available for them and she wouldn't look like a complete idiot.

The chemistry analyzer beeped indicating that the analysis for lactate and pyruvate was finished. She went over to the analyzer and printed the results. Both values were high for an infant. Susan had forgotten to run the test for Sickle Cell and so she started that process and then called the conference room.

"Foreman," Dr. Foreman said as he answered the phone and put it on speaker.

"I have the slides ready for the bone marrow aspirate if you guys want to come down here," said Susan.

"Just image the pertinent areas and send the images to us like you usually do" said Chase.

"Well, that's the problem. I don't know bone marrow morphology well enough to be sure I'm sending you the images you need to see," Susan admitted hesitatingly.

Foreman lifted one eyebrow in response and said, "We'll be right down."

He hung up the phone and the fellows filed out of the room and headed to the lab.

Susan turned on the video camera to the microscope and set it up for the fellows and then slipped around to the other side of the counter to check on the Sickle Cell analysis. The fellows and Martha filed into the lab and went right over to the microscope and the video output. Foreman looked in the scope and moved the slide around on the base of the scope. "Plenty of cells, hmm – looks like there is a decreased myeloid to erythroid ratio, Also some abnormalities in the cytoplasm of the erythroids. Susan, did you happen to create a smear from the whole blood specimen?"

"In the rack right next to you," Susan replied. At that moment the results from the Sickle Cell test printed out, "Negative for Sickle Cell," Susan added.

Foreman replaced the bone marrow aspirate slide with the blood smear, "Red blood cells are of unequal size."

"Do you see those tear-shaped ones?" Susan asked

"Yes, and some fragmented cells as well …." Foreman started and everybody's pagers went off.

"I got it," Chase said and ran out the room with Martha following close behind.

"What?" Susan asked.

"Patient's seizing," Taub said as House walked into the lab. House looked at the video feed of the blood smear as Foreman continued to scan the slide.

"What did the bone marrow show?" House asked. Foreman explained what he had seen on the bone marrow aspirate. "What were the levels of the Lactate and Pyruvate?" he asked Susan.

"High, 9.1 and 0.29 respectively," Susan answered.

House sat down on the lab stool and stared off into space for a while. Given the seizure, whatever it is, it's affecting her brain as well." House looked over at Foreman, "Get some of her cerebrospinal fluid for a GC analysis." Foreman and Taub walked out of the lab and Susan walked over to her hospital directory and started perusing through the medical school's research labs. "What are you looking for?" House asked.

"No Gas Chromatograph in here, need to find somebody who has one," she said.

"Can you do the analysis?" House asked

"Just like riding a bike ….," Susan's voice trailed off as she continued to look through the directory and found what she needed. Susan lifted the phone to make the call and then turned to House, "I think I'm going to get some of the patient's urine and run that through before I run the spinal fluid if that is OK. I don't want to waste any of the CSF fluid if there are any issues with the analysis."

House nodded his approval and left the lab.

Susan hung up the phone and headed over to NICU. Since she wasn't allowed in the room dressed as she was, she knocked on the glass door. Martha came over to the door and Susan asked how long they thought they would be, "They're just now prepping for the procedure, it'll probably be an hour or so before they have the specimen for you," she said.

Susan asked her to get a urine specimen as well and then said, "I haven't had anything to eat all day; I'm headed down to the cafeteria for a few minutes. Put the specimen in the lab refrigerator if I'm not back in the lab by the time you're finished."

Susan found an empty booth and sat down with her rather late lunch. As she bit into her sandwich, Dr. Wilson sat down across from her bearing a cup of coffee he had just purchased for himself. At least with Dr. Wilson, she didn't have to worry about half of her lunch disappearing she thought. "Hey boss, what's up?" she asked after she swallowed.

"Just saw you and thought I would join you for a bit," he said.

The two sat in an awkward silence for a moment, when Susan said, "We have an interesting case with a patient in NICU."

"I heard something about it," he replied.

They fell silent again.

"I also heard that you got a surprise with your chemistry class," Wilson said.

"Mmm Hmm," Susan acknowledged while chewing. After she swallowed she said, "Professor Hastings was apparently quite a character." She paused, "I think the school is better off without him, good thing he retired early."

"I think he was encouraged to leave early, but that's only my theory – no evidence to back it up," he said.

"He was a condescending womanizer at the very least," Susan said, "and lazy on top of that."

"Why do you say he was a womanizer?" Wilson asked.

Susan told him about the interaction she'd had with him when she went to pick up his class notes. "He also gave the men in the class higher grades than the women – except for one. If she is who I think she is, then my theory will be confirmed, but I haven't figured out who everybody is yet. Of course, the grades are irrelevant since he didn't teach them anything. I have to start over from scratch."

"Not much time to get that done," Wilson said.

"No, there isn't," she replied.

The two fell silent again and then Dr. Wilson shifted uncomfortably in his seat and then asked, "Susan, are you doing anything Saturday night?"

Susan looked up at Dr. Wilson, "Actually yes, but why?"

"I was just wondering if you wanted to catch a movie or something," Wilson said with a little trepidation.

"Oh. Well, as you said there isn't much time to get everything done that I need to do for the class and I was planning on spending most of the weekend working on that. I also have some furniture shopping I need to find time to do," Susan said.

"Ugh, I hate furniture shopping," Wilson said.

"Well, it's not my favorite either, but it needs to be done," she said. "I'm replacing my bedroom suit – downsizing."

"Downsizing?" Wilson asked

"Well my husband is gone and since I'm not planning on replacing him, I'm replacing the king size bed for something quite a bit smaller. It'll be nice having more actual room in the room without the bed taking up so much space," Susan said as nonchalantly as possible hoping that he would take the hint without taking it personally.

"I see," Wilson said.

Susan could see a combination of emotions on Wilson's face. She decided to give him a carrot to make him feel better without letting on that she was at all interested, which she wasn't. "I was wondering if you could help me out."

"With what?" he asked.

"This patient that we have; I was asked to stain a bone marrow aspirate specimen and instead of sending images of the relevant areas like I do with histology specimens, I had to have Dr. Foreman come down and look at the slides for him to evaluate them himself. I'm not familiar enough with what I'm looking at to feel confident that I would be sending them the images they need to see. I was wondering if you would mind showing me what I need to be looking for on bone marrow biopsies," she explained.

"I would be happy to do that Susan," Wilson said with a smile. "How about we start next week after you get settled with your class?"

"Great! Thanks," she said as she got up to leave. "I've got to get back to the lab. They should be finished getting the CSF specimen by now."

When Susan returned to the lab, the both the CSF and urine specimen were sitting in the refrigerator. Susan walked over to her desk to call the research lab she was going to visit to borrow their gas chromatograph when she noticed her 'messages' light flashing on her phone. She pressed the button to listen to the message – it was the research lab. The GC was down and the technical representative for the instrument was working on it, but it probably wouldn't be ready until tomorrow. Susan called the lab and asked them if there were any other GC's in the facility and was told that theirs was the only one that had been up and running. If she tried to use any of the others, she would spend just as much time getting it ready to analyze as it would take for their GC to be repaired. Susan hung up the phone and called Dr. House to relay the message.

House hung up the phone, his disappointment evident on his face. "What?" asked Wilson, who had come into his office after his visit with Susan in the cafeteria. House told him what Susan had said, "So you'll have to wait until tomorrow to get your answer."

"I'm not sure that is even going to give me an answer, I'm grasping at straws. Every time I think I have an idea, the baby shows another symptom that sends me in another direction. Babies are such a challenge. They can't tell you what hurts or what is bothering them." He said.

"If she could, she'd lie anyway," Wilson replied.

House nodded circumspectly, "True."

"I asked Susan out for this Saturday night," Wilson offered after a moment.

House's head popped up toward Wilson with a very protective look on his face.

"Whoa! Defensive. Don't worry, she turned me down flat," he said.

"Smart girl," House said.

"Hey! I'm not such a bad choice," Wilson said. "Besides, she's kinda cute."

"Yeah – well, you need to focus your 'kinda-cute-radar' elsewhere, besides Susan's not nearly needy enough for you," House said.

"She did throw me a bone however," Wilson said.

"What do you mean? A bone?" House asked.

"She wants me to show her what to look for in bone marrow biopsies. She was disappointed with herself by not being able to do more than just prepare the specimen and wants to rectify that," he paused, "You know, she really does care for you," Wilson said.

"Giving me her liver kinda showed me that," House replied.

"I think she worries that she's going to be a disappointment to you," Wilson said.

"Well, that would be in her character," House said thinking of their past conversation. "She's not a disappointment."

"Maybe you should tell her that from time to time," Wilson advised.

"That would be out of _my_ character," House replied.

Chapter 3 - continued

Susan was at a loss of what to do for the patient. She was stuck without having the GC available, so she decided to spend time on the worksheet she was preparing for her students for their review of the first two chapters of the text before it was time to leave for the day.

After a couple of hours, she walked up to the conference room. Out in the hall Susan could see that the team was gathered around the conference room each of them looking through various texts. Dr. House was in his office balancing Ball-y on his cane and tossing it against the wall – typical puzzle thinking behavior. She decided not to interrupt them and turned to go back to the lab when all four fellows ran out of the room passing her in the hall. "Patient's crashing!" Martha explained as she ran by.

"Great!" thought Susan sarcastically. "I wish I could get that analysis done now." She started to head back to the lab when she heard Dr. House.

"Susan, c'mere," he said poking his head out of his door.

"Oh crap," she thought to herself. "He upset I can't get that analysis complete." Susan reluctantly followed House back in his office waiting for the barrage of words to begin.

"I'm starting to think genetic with this patient….," he began. "What's wrong?" he asked suddenly when he saw her face.

"Oh, nothing – you were saying?" Susan asked having been surprised when he hadn't started in on her for not being able to do the GC analysis.

"I'd like to get a mitochondrial DNA analysis done," he said.

"We'll have to send out for that one," Susan said. "There's a lab in Bethesda that does them."

"Find out what they need and send the sample over to them for analysis. Tell them the patient's critical and to work quickly," he said.

MDMDMDMDMD

Susan got off the phone with the lab in Bethesda and sighed, this wasn't going to be pleasant for the baby. As she started to head to NICU to talk to the fellows, her phone rang; she turned to answer it. "Diagnostics Lab, this is Susan," she said. Susan listened for a moment, "That's great! I'll be right there." Susan hung up the phone and went over to the refrigerator to get the urine and CSF specimens and left the lab. Before heading over to Professor Jones' lab to run the CG analysis, she stopped by NICU and told Chase what she needed for the mtDNA analysis and asked him to wait to do the biopsy until she returned.

Two hours later, Susan was back with the GC analysis for the CSF fluid and urine. Lactate levels were very high in both specimen types. She called Chase and he told her to meet him in pediatric surgery in 30 minutes. Susan walked down to the main laboratory calling Taub as she made her way to the tissue culture lab. She had just hung up with Dr. Taub when she walked in the lab. The tech in the lab was splitting a cell line to encourage cell growth. Susan had never met this tech and she introduced herself and asked the tech for a Dewar flask and some liquid nitrogen after explaining the situation. Having what she needed, Susan started to rush to surgery to get there before all the liquid nitrogen evaporated, but was stopped by Chris, the clinical lab manager who was blocking the door.

"Why are _you_ here?" he asked as he stepped inside the tissue culture lab. Susan explained the situation to the lab manager, but he wasn't having any of it, "I don't care what the situation is, Dr. House has his own lab and his own _special_ tech, you don't need to be coming down here to use our equipment whenever it suits you or to steal any of our supplies.

Susan tried to explain the urgency of the situation and that they could work this out later, but the lab manager was being difficult. During the course of the conversation however, Susan managed to work her way around him and past the door. As he was starting to lay into her, Susan thought, _I don't have time for this_, and escaped out of the lab and down the hall with the manager yelling after her. "I don't want to see you in my lab again!"

Susan was angry, she hadn't done anything wrong. She certainly hadn't stolen anything, she had asked politely. She decided to put the whole ugly mess behind her and once in surgery, Susan scrubbed up and dressed as quickly as she could and entered the room. Chase and Foreman were ready to obtain the skeletal muscle biopsy. Not bothering with an explanation, she apologized for her tardiness. As she approached, Chase took the biopsy. Susan opened the Dewar flask and Chase dropped the muscle tissue into the flask in order to flash freeze the biopsy. As quickly as she had arrived, she left, disrobed the surgery scrubs and practically ran to the lab.

Once in the lab, Susan removed the tissue from the liquid nitrogen and placed it in a small sample vial and quickly placed it in a container of dry ice that Dr. Taub had gotten for her while she was getting the liquid nitrogen from tissue culture. Susan packed the box and called the hospital courier to pick up the specimen and hand-deliver it to the Bethesda laboratory. The lab had agreed to start working on the specimen as soon as it was received. Still, it was going to take a minimum of three days to get the results.

The team gathered in the conference room and Susan presented the results of the GC analysis. "The urine specimen contained a lot of lactic acid and several other organic acids," she said as she handed out copies from the print outs to Dr. House and the team. "And the CSF fluid has elevated alanine levels. I've sent the biopsy specimen over to a lab in Bethesda for the mitochondrial DNA analysis, but at minimum it's going to be three days before we have a result."

"I want it faster than that," House said

"It's not going to happen," Susan replied shaking her head.

House flashed an angry look her way. "Find a way," he said.

"I've already talked to them Dr. House. They said they would start working on it as soon as they get the specimen. I've sent the hospital courier to deliver it by hand to them, there isn't anything else I can do to get the results any faster," she said.

House was angry at Susan for arguing with him, "I need those results."

"It is what it is Dr. House; the process can't go any quicker. It takes time to go through each step…" Susan started getting annoyed with him for asking the impossible.

"Quit arguing with me and take care of it," House said quietly as his anger continued to mount.

"You're being unreasonable," Susan argued.

House's face started turning bright red as he glared at Susan. Suddenly her temper got the better of her; "Fine!" she said slamming her fist on the table. "I'll call them and be an ass like you and see if that will magically compress time!"

Susan stormed out the conference room and started to the lab. As the elevator door opened, Dr. Wilson stepped out and noted the expression on Susan's face, "What!" she said. Wilson put his hands up in front of him defensively and shook his head in answer. By the time she got to the basement where the lab was located, tears were coursing down her cheeks. She hadn't lost her temper like that in a long time. She wiped the tears from her face and picked up the phone to call the lab director at the facility.

By the time she had gotten off the phone, she had convinced the lab director to have someone working on the specimen non-stop until the analysis was finished. It was going to cost them a lot more in order to cover the overtime costs and it would only take 8 hours off the turn-around time – but there wasn't anything else she could do.

It was late and Susan was tired, she decided to go home.

MDMDMDMD

"Wow! She's got quite a temper," Chase said as they watched her storm out of the lab.

"Can it!" House said, "Keep the infant on 24-hour watch and treat the symptoms as they come, let me know if there are any other changes." House rose from the table and went into his office to gather his things before he left for the night. The team talked amongst themselves to determine who would get the first watch and the rest left to get some rest before their shift began.

Just as House was getting ready to walk out the door, Wilson walked in, "Everything alright?" he asked, "I just saw a very upset Susan pass me in the hall."

"I'm fine, we just got into an argument" House replied rather downcast.

"You don't look fine," Wilson said.

"She's never argued with me before," House said as he sat back down.

"This is actually a good thing House," Wilson said.

"Oh? Why is that?" House asked.

"Remember what I told you before; she's worried about being a disappointment. This shows she's starting to stand up for herself. Siblings argue House, don't worry about it, it'll be fine," Wilson explained. "Bowling tonight?"

House nodded, "I'll meet you there."

MDMDMDMD

Susan felt horrible. She felt like she was failing him at every turn with this case and on top of that she lost her temper – again. When was she going to learn to keep it under control? Her cell phone rang and she looked at the caller ID, it was Greg.

"Yeah?" she said quietly when she answered the phone.

"You call the lab?" he asked

"Yes, they said they would try," she said.

House hung up the phone without replying as he headed to the bowling alley.

Susan tried to work on her lecture notes, but was unable to concentrate. She watched TV, but couldn't get into the show. Her mind kept drifting to her argument with Greg; it was stupid and she shouldn't have lost her temper. She decided to take a soaking bath and try to relax. It had been a long day and tomorrow she had a lot to do preparing for her second day of class to try to speed-teach her class what they should have learned over a month ago. An hour later, Susan had finished her bath and was ready for bed when there was a knock on the door. She slipped on her robe and looked out the peep hole. She opened the door and House walked in and shut the door behind him.

Susan walked over to her couch and sat down not wanting to look at him for fear she would start crying again. House followed her and sat down facing her, "You still mad?" he asked. Susan shook her head still not able to look him in the eye.

"They promised to have somebody working on it non-stop until the analysis is complete, but they don't think it'll speed things up much," Susan said quietly.

House sat quiet for a moment and then asked, "How are you coming with your class preparation?"

Thankful for a change in topic, Susan look up at him. "I have a full set of notes ready to cover the first two chapters of the text. I'm also creating a worksheet for the students to use to help them get through the material. I'm hoping to get through all of the material Wednesday so that Friday we can start covering chapter three which introduces the mole. It's a hard concept for a lot of people, so I want to be able to take two lecture periods to cover it before we review everything to get them ready for their exam next Friday."

Susan and House spent the next half hour in small talk about basic chemistry and by the time House was ready to leave Susan had a couple more ideas about how to present the concept of moles to her students. House got up and started toward the door. Susan walked with him and just as he was about to open the door, Susan touched his arm. He turned around to face her and Susan looked up to meet his eyes. Tears started forming in her own when she suddenly wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her head in his chest, "I'm sorry," she said as the tears started to flow.

House was startled, but held his ground. He was uncomfortable with the emotion and the contact, but slowly brought his cane-less hand up and set it on her back in a comforting gesture, "I know," he said quietly, "Me too."

Susan released her hold and stepped back. House opened the door and walked out of her apartment. Feeling better, Susan wiped the tears that had fallen down her cheeks and went to bed.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Tuesday was a long day. Susan spent her day split between working on the review worksheet for her students, providing updated chemistries for their case and clinic duty with Dr. House. The team was focused on keeping the baby alive, treating symptoms as they arrived. The baby continued to provide a plethora of symptoms and answers eluded the team. The white board in the conference room was nearly full of symptoms and signs of multiple organ failures. The baby was dying and the exhausted team was helpless to stop it. It seemed that everything was on hold until the results from the mitochondrial DNA test was complete. Susan called the lab every few hours for an update. Once the lab finished the PCR step, she knew it wouldn't be long before they had an answer. At the end of the day, her phone rang. "Diagnostics Lab, this is Susan," she said as she answered. It was the lab, they were beginning the PCR step and they should have enough material for the actual analysis in about 6 hours. "How long will the analysis take once the PCR is finished?" she asked. Giving them her cell phone number, she told them to call her as soon as the analysis was complete. When they argued that it would be very early in the morning, she told them she didn't care to please call her.

The phone rang and Susan reached to her nightstand to answer it. "Thank you," she told them and asked them to email her the results. Susan sat up, squinted her eyes to see the time on her alarm clock; it was 3:00am. She got out of bed and slipped on the clothes she had laid out the evening before knowing she was going to make an early entry into work. She grabbed her glasses, and forgoing makeup, ran a brush through her hair and rushed into work.

In the lab, Susan pulled up her email. She opened the attachment and printed out the diagram and results page. She knew somebody from the team was here as House had ordered 24-hour monitoring of the patient. She walked up to the conference room and in his adjacent office she found Dr. House sleeping in his lounge chair. She walked in quietly and grabbed his reading glasses off his desk and then sat down beside him before she nudged him on his shoulder. "Hey," she said.

House opened his eyes and looked at her as he awoke. He sat up and took his glasses from her as well as the print out that she held out to him. He studied the results and then the diagram, his face grim. "What is it?" she asked.

"There's a large deletion area," he said.

Just as Susan was getting ready to ask him what that meant, Chase walked into House's office and House handed the results to him. Chase looked at the diagram. "Well that explains the varied symptoms," he said. "Pearson's Syndrome."

House nodded. Chase said, "I'll go talk to the parents," and walked out the door.

"Pearson's Syndrome?" Susan asked.

"Bad news," House said. "The baby will likely die before she turns three and her life will be marked with continued organ failures, comas and mental retardation. She'll probably never learn to walk and most likely will be completely deaf before she dies."

"We can't do anything?" Susan asked.

"No. All we can do is treat the symptoms as they come," he answered. "I'm going home, I'll see you later."

Susan didn't see much point in going back home; she'd have to be back here in just a few hours anyway, so she went back to her lab and started her daily QC routine to prepare for the day. That complete, she cleaned the lab scrubbing down the countertops and sweeping the floor. She made a note to call maintenance later today and have them strip and re-wax the floor over the weekend. When she was finished the lab looked much better. It was still early, so she decided to go to the cafeteria to get some breakfast.

Dr. Cuddy walked in the cafeteria when she noticed Susan in line. She went up next to her, "You're in early this morning."

"We had some results from an outside lab come in during the night, so I came in early to retrieve them. Once I was here, I didn't see the point in going back home," Susan explained.

Susan got her food and headed to a table. Dr. Cuddy followed behind and as she approached the table she asked, "Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all," Susan said. The two women chatted for a while sharing stories about Rachel and Laura and other female subjects unrelated to work. It wasn't long however before Dr. Cuddy was called away to put out another fire. After she left Susan thought that Cuddy might be a decent friend someday. She was practically her sister-in-law and it was nice having someone around that she could talk to, though being her boss – she didn't feel that comfortable just spilling her guts.

When Susan entered her lab, there was a young lady waiting on her. "Professor Watkins, I'm Candi and I'm in your nursing chem class."

"What can I do for you Candi?" she asked as she went through the files in her brain for a student named "Candi".

"I wanted to find out what my grade is in class," she said.

"Oh, well it's irrelevant, Candi. It's apparent to me that Professor Hastings didn't teach anybody anything. I can't trust any grade in his grade book, so we're starting over," Susan explained. Noticing the look on Candi's face she said, "This is actually a good thing Candi, nearly everybody was failing. This gives you the chance of starting over – a clean slate."

"I don't think I was failing," Candi said.

And then Susan realized that "Candi" was Patricia C. Smith in her grade book; the only female in the class with a high grade. "Tell me Candi, why do you think were you the only female in the class with a high grade?" already having a fairly good idea why that was.

"I know what you're thinking and I haven't done anything," Candi said. "Professor Hastings was a pig. He was always making passes at me. He was 'taking care' of me grade wise and he expected me to reciprocate, which I had managed to avoid so far. I've worked hard to get into nursing school and I don't need any 'favors'" she explained. "I just don't understand why this keeps happening to me."

"Seriously?" Susan asked incredulously. "Try looking in the mirror. Candi, everybody in my class has the same opportunity to do well or do poorly. If you apply yourself, you'll do fine." Susan paused for a moment not sure if she should continue, "Candi, if you want people to take you seriously, it wouldn't hurt you to make a few changes."

"Like what?" asked Candi.

"Well, first of all – quit going by 'Candi'. It's a cute name for a child, but as an adult it's not going to be taken seriously. Your first name is Patricia, start going by that and if you're not comfortable with that, try 'Candice' instead. You might also try letting your hair go back to its natural color instead of bleaching it and start dressing more conservatively. You're a lovely young lady and you don't need all that," she said as she gestured towards her outfit which was borderline slutty. "While it shouldn't matter what we wear or how we fix our hair, the fact is that it does. There are a lot of pigs out there who'll jump to the wrong conclusions at the slightest hint, intentional or not."

Professor Watkins had given Candi something to think about. She'd never really had much of a chance in life, her mom was a call girl and she never knew her dad. She dressed the way she did because that was all she knew. She decided to take her instructors advice. She'd worked hard to get into nursing school. She wanted to make something of her life. "Thank you," she said sincerely as she got up to leave.

As she left Susan made a mental note to remind her students that she wasn't technically a Professor. You had to have a PhD or MD to have that title. She was simply an instructor. She needed to decide if she wanted the students to refer to her as Ms. Watkins or just Susan.

Chase started to walk in the lab. He turned and watched Candi pass by, smiling as he watched her walk away. He turned to follow her when he heard a voice, "Dr. Chase!" He turned toward the voice in the lab, "Don't go there. Haven't you learned your lesson?" Susan asked. Properly admonished, Chase turned bright red with embarrassment. "What did you need?" Susan asked.

"I think we should write up this case we just finished, I was wondering if you would give me the entire set of lab data so I can start get started," he said. "I could go through everybody's charts, but thought it would be easier to get started this way."

Susan didn't mind and gave him what he needed. By the time he left, it was time for class and Susan headed to the lecture room. "Good morning," Susan said as she entered the class.

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"So this was Susan," he thought to himself. He'd heard a lot about House's sister and decided to come to one of her lectures to see her. She was attractive, but he wondered if she was as abrasive as House was. She seemed normal if her lecture style was any indication. After observing her class for a while, he got up and left through the back door.

Susan continued her lecture as she saw the man leave her classroom, "…..so using differential analysis how do we solve this particular problem?" she asked as she moved to the white board to work out the problem with the assistance of the students.

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After class Susan returned to her desk in the lab to find the same man who had left her class waiting for her return. "Hi, is there something I can help you with?" she asked.

"No, I just wanted to introduce myself, I'm Dr. David James," he said as he held out his hand. "I'm the head of basic sciences for the allied health department."

"It's nice to meet you," Susan replied as she shook his hand. "I haven't had opportunity to meet any of the academic staff yet."

"I don't ordinarily bring on teaching staff without interviewing, but Dr. Cuddy was insistent that you would be the perfect fit for Professor Hastings' class. After observing you this morning, I'm inclined to agree," he said.

A little embarrassed with the complement Susan said, "That's very kind. Were you aware that Professor Hastings had fallen behind?"

_Fallen behind_, he thought, that was an underestimate if there ever was one. She was just trying to be polite, definitely _not_ like Dr. House. "We had suspicions and so Dr. Cuddy made arrangements to confirm and rather than create controversy around the school, we opted to retire him early before the students were adversely affected," he explained. After a few more minutes of idle chatting about her plans for the rest of the semester, he left. Susan didn't feel much like being alone, so she headed to the conference room to check on House's team.

When Susan entered the room, Foreman and Taub were making arrangements to transfer the baby to the care of a pediatrician who specialized in genetic diseases now that she was diagnosed. Chase was sitting at the computer working on the case study and Martha was studying. House was nowhere to be seen, "He's hiding from Cuddy," said Taub when she asked.

"Kind of silly since he'll see her tonight," Susan replied.

"But tonight, she won't be able to send him to clinic duty," Foreman noted.

"I was thinking of going out for lunch today, anybody want to join me?" Susan asked.

Everybody declined her invitation citing other duties they had to attend, so Susan went back to the lab alone. She pulled out the class text and began making notes for Friday's lecture when she felt a presence at her side, "I heard a rumor you were looking for a lunch date," House said.

"Yeah, but everybody's busy so I came back here," she said dejectedly.

"You buying?" House asked.

"No," she replied. House just looked at her a little confused.

"If you pay, I'll go," House teased.

"Just go on," Susan said, "If I can't get anybody to join me without having to bribe them, then I guess I'm just better off alone."

Unsure of how to deal with this side of Susan that had started to appear recently, House turned and started out the door. He stopped suddenly and turned back, "Come on, I'll buy your lunch," he said.

"I don't need your pity either – just go," she replied.

Totally confused, this time House did leave. Susan put her head down on her desk and wept silently.

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"Something's wrong," House said as Cuddy sat down on the couch having just finished cleaning up from dinner. She looked over at House with Rachel curled up on his lap, something Rachel had only recently started doing. House was still uncomfortable with Rachel, but he was learning to relax around her and Cuddy was enjoying watching him become fonder of her with each passing day.

"What are you talking about?" Cuddy asked not sure of what he meant.

"With Susan," he said. "I thought at first she was just missing her husband, but in talking about it with her, I realized that she really doesn't think much of herself. Now she seems distant and is moody. She argued with me and lost her temper the other day, and today she practically pushed me away."

"Another puzzle for you to solve," Cuddy replied as she got up to take Rachel from House. It was 7:30 and Rachel's bedtime.

"I bet she's started menopause," House said when Cuddy returned. "That would explain the moodiness."

"She's a little young yet, although it's certainly not that uncommon at her age," Cuddy said. "Maybe she's pregnant."

"Not hardly; she hasn't had sex in over two years," House replied.

"How would you know that?" Cuddy asked.

"I asked, she told me," House replied.

"Why would you ask something like that? It's none of your business," Cuddy said.

"Don't preach to me sister – it was just part of the conversation," House said indignantly.

"Fine, you work on solving this latest puzzle, I need to prepare for the budget meeting tomorrow," Cuddy said as she got up to get her laptop.

Soon Cuddy was engrossed in her report and House turned on the television and flipped channels for a while. Frustrated with that, he finally he got up and told Cuddy he was headed to his own apartment for the night. He needed some alone time and Cuddy was going to be up late working on her report anyway.

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House walked in his own apartment, it almost seemed strange to him. He'd been spending a lot of time at Cuddy's instead of at his place. He looked around, it needed dusting. He went to the kitchen and got out a can of furniture polish and a rag and went over to his piano. Carefully he dusted his piano and after he was finished, he cleaned the keys. The rest of the apartment could wait. He would call the cleaning service tomorrow and have someone come by for a more thorough cleaning. He'd been thinking of just moving in with Cuddy, but he wasn't ready for that and he didn't think that Rachel was either. He was just starting to see Rachel as more than just Cuddy's kid and as much as he denied it, he really did care for her. He still was unsure of his relationship with Cuddy and he didn't want to hurt Rachel by moving in and then moving out should the relationship go sour.

House sat at his piano playing random tunes as his thoughts turned to Susan and this sudden shift in her personality. He thought back to the other day during their conversation, she seemed depressed which was unlike her after the team solved a case. Of course, she'd only had one night of sleep after pulling a 36 hour long 'day' so she'd been tired. Sure she'd referred to missing her husband, but House didn't see Susan as the type of woman that needed a companion; she was independent and was comfortable being alone. Since then, she had been assigned the chemistry class and discovered her students were way behind – that was stressful, but he'd seen her under stress before and she hadn't acted like this. He remembered she was disappointed that she didn't know how to interpret the bone marrow biopsy, but he didn't really expect her to. Her knowledge of histology was just a bonus as far as he was concerned. She lost her temper with him and she'd _never_ done that before, something had to have set her off to lose control like that and then today she was feeling rejected. Something wasn't adding up and House was determined to find the answer. He stopped playing, went over to his computer and flipped it on.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five:

His cell phone rang waking him up. He looked at the clock, 7:00am and then he looked at the caller ID, it was Laura. "House," he said deciding to answer.

"Hey Uncle Greg," she said.

"Why are you calling me at this ungodly hour in the morning?" he asked.

"Yeah, sorry about that, I need to leave for class in a half hour and I wanted to ask you if mom was OK," she said.

"Why do you ask?" he asked.

"I called her last night just to chat and she just wasn't herself," Laura said. "She seemed depressed and I don't remember her ever acting like that before. I was wondering if something bad happened at work or if you've noticed anything different."

"I hadn't paid any attention," he lied. "But I'll keep my eyes open."

"You'll let me know if you find anything important, won't you?" she asked.

"Sure," he said and then he hung up the phone.

OK, so he wasn't imagining things, if her kid picked up on it even just over the phone, then it was real. House's internet investigation hadn't turned up much. He'd searched her on the web and found a couple of papers she'd either written or had been part of the research team, but he already knew about those. He tried to break into her university records at both her undergraduate and graduate institutions, but was unsuccessful. She was an only child, well except for him, but no full siblings. Both her parents were dead, and he knew the circumstances of her dad's death, but was unable to find out anything about the cause of her mother's passing. He was up against a brick wall. He needed some lab tests, but how was he going to get that from her without her knowing. It's not like he could just come up to her say hi, and pull her blood without her noticing. He needed to talk to Wilson.

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"You want me to do what?" Wilson asked.

"You heard me, I want you to pull some blood from Susan and give it to me so I can run some tests," House said.

"How am I supposed to do that?" Wilson asked.

"You'll think of something," House said as he exited Wilson's office.

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"Hey Susan," Wilson said as he entered the lab. "What's up?"

"Calibration day on the chemistry analyzer," Susan replied. "Why are you carrying around a phlebotomy kit?"

"I have to pull your blood today, the hospital is checking to make sure everybody's HepB vaccination titer to see if anybody needs a booster."

"Oh, OK," Susan said as she sat down and rolled up her sleeve. "You'll be happy, I have great veins."

"That's good to know," Wilson said as he started the process to pull her blood.

Wilson pulled the first tube of blood and then grabbed a second tube. "Why are you pulling another tube? You only need the serum tube for a titer," Susan asked.

_Damn_, thought Wilson, he should have known better than to use that excuse. "Uh, well that's what the memo said, so that's what I'm doing," he said as he tried to recover. He finished the blood draw and put a band-aid on Susan's arm.

"Don't lie to me Wilson, what's going on?" Susan asked.

Wilson looked down and brought his hand up to his eyebrows and pinched the top of his nose, his typical sign of being bothered by something. "Nothing, it's just what I said," he said as he quickly stepped out the door and ending the conversation.

"Why did Wilson just pull my blood?" Susan asked when she walked in the door to House's office.

"What did he tell you?" House asked as he turned his chair to face her.

"He said that the hospital was checking everybody's HepB vaccination titers, but he pulled two different tubes of blood and you only need the serum tube to run a titer," Susan said. "What are you looking for?"

"And you assumed I put him up to it because…?" House asked.

"Because Wilson can't lie for crap," Susan replied, "and the only reason he would bother to pull blood from me and then lie about it was if you told him to."

House sighed and leaned back in his chair. "You're not acting like yourself, I wanted to see if there was a medical reason why,"

"You could have just asked," Susan replied.

"Ok, so you admit there is something wrong then," House said.

"I never said there wasn't," said Susan. She paused and then said, "I'm just a little down right now; I'll be fine."

Susan left House's office and headed down the hall. _She's not fine_, House thought to himself. _Something's wrong_.

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"You're an idiot," House said to Wilson as he walked in the door, "You tell her it's for a HepB titer and then you pull two tubes? She's a lab tech Wilson; she knows which tube you need for a titer."

"I'm sorry," Wilson replied. "You caught me off guard. I couldn't think of anything else that wouldn't seem out of the ordinary." Wilson handed over the tubes of blood to House. "Where are you going to have the labs run? It's not like you'll get much help from the main lab. The lab manager hates you."

"I'll run them myself after Susan leaves for the day," House said pocketing the tubes and walking out the door.

Wilson poked his head out his door when House was about halfway down the corridor, "Are we meeting for lunch today?"

"No, I have a date," House replied behind him as he continued walking.

"Tell Cuddy hello for me," Wilson said as he started to turn back inside.

"Not with Cuddy," House replied as he turned the corner.

Wilson burrowed his forehead as he poked his head back out his door to ask, but House had already turned the corner and was gone.

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Susan had her head buried under the lid of her analyzer cleaning the reagent probes when she heard someone clear their throat behind her. She pulled her head out from under the lid and recognized the tissue culture lab tech from the main lab standing in the middle of her lab, "May I help you?" she asked.

"I'm here to collect back my Dewar flask from the other day," she said.

"Oh, sure," Susan said as she walked over to the drain rack above the sink. "I cleaned it up for you, and I'm sorry I didn't get it back sooner. I got rather distracted with our patient and other duties," she said.

"Its fine," the lab tech started and then paused before starting again, "I'm kind of new here; why did my lab manager get so upset when you came in the lab?"

"He doesn't like my boss and he feels the need to take it out on me," Susan explained. "I don't really understand it. He got what he wanted when the board decided to give Dr. House his own lab tech, but there was so much animosity between them by that time, that he doesn't feel the need to let it go. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks if he's rude enough to me that I'll quit and leave Dr. House in a bind just to get back at him, but it's not going to work. I'm not going anywhere. I'm also not going to stop going to the main lab whenever I need to. I don't have all the equipment I need in here for everything and what I do have is a little out of date. You're lab manager is a jerk, but he doesn't scare me. I work for Dr. House after all. He should know better."

The lab tech chuckled, "I better get back before I'm missed. Nice talking to you." She walked out the door just as Dr. House was walking in; he watched her leave the lab.

"Who was that?" he asked.

"Tissue culture tech in the main lab," Susan said.

"What'd she want?"

"Her Dewar flask I borrowed when I had to flash freeze the biopsy from the baby," Susan answered.

"Get your jacket and come on," he said.

Susan grabbed her coat and followed him out of the lab. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"To lunch," he said.

Susan stopped in her tracks, "I told you I didn't need your pity," she said and turned to go back to the lab.

"Susan!" Susan stopped and turned around to face him. "I'm not asking you to join me for lunch. I'm telling you that we're going to lunch. Now come on, let's go," he ordered.

Susan followed him out of the hospital and to his car. She got in the passenger side and shut the door. The trip to the restaurant was quiet and the tension in the air was thick. When they arrived, she got out and followed him inside. The hostess led them to a small table toward the back and left the menus with them. The room was fairly dark and it was hard for Susan to read the menu. She took off her glasses and held the menu closer to her face so she could read the print. "You know, they make these things called bifocals," House teased.

"I'm aware of that," she said curtly as she perused through the menu items. Making her selection, she put the menu down and picked up her glasses and put them back on. "I don't need them unless I'm in a darkened room trying to read small print or I'm trying to thread a needle. I can see close up fine without my glasses, so I just take them off when I need to."

"Why did you bring me here?" she asked a few moments later.

"I can't take my little sister out to eat once in a while?" he replied.

"Not you, that's out of your character. You want something; I want to know what it is that you want?" Susan retorted.

House started to reply when the waiter came to take their drink order. Susan ordered iced tea and House ordered bourbon. When the waiter left, Susan looked at House, "Well?" she asked.

"I don't want anything, I just wanted to do something nice," he said.

Susan decided to drop it for the moment. "What are you doing for Cuddy tomorrow?" she asked.

"What's tomorrow?" he asked.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No," he replied.

"Tomorrow is Valentines Day," Susan explained.

House sat back in his chair. "Oh," he said. "I don't guess I'm doing anything."

"Not doing anything?" Susan asked, "Are you insane?"

"It's just a stupid holiday for the sole purpose of making men spend money for their women," House said.

"Don't," said Susan.

"What do you mean, 'don't'," he asked.

"Don't do that to her. It doesn't have to be much, just let her know you're thinking of her," Susan said.

"She knows I think of her all the time, I shouldn't have to send her cards, flowers or anything else. She knows how I feel; besides she's not into all that snuggly stuff," he said.

"Greg, trust me, do something for her. She'll appreciate it. Even if she doesn't act like its any big deal, it is," Susan said with confidence as the waiter came back to deliver their drinks and take their orders.

"You talk like you have experience," House said when the waiter left.

"And you're still trying to put my puzzle together when I told you that I would be fine," Susan said. She sighed and leaned back in her chair. "Greg, Jeff was not a romantic. He never remembered my birthday, our anniversary, Mother's Day or Valentines Day. He didn't even bother giving me anything for Christmas and insisted that I didn't do anything for him either. Over the years I got used to it and said that it didn't bother me – and for the most part it didn't, except Valentines Day. I know it's stupid, but Valentines Day would come and everybody else got balloons, candy or flowers delivered to them at work. All the other women would ooh and awe and then talk about where they were going for dinner that night. I remember one time, one of the lady's at work was serenaded by a men's quartet. I wouldn't want something like that at all, but a card would have been nice or even a single flower, something, anything would have been nice. Instead I got nothing and when I got home the first thing that was said to me was, "What's for dinner?" Don't do that to Cuddy. Don't hurt her like that. She may not act hurt, but believe me – she will be."

House nodded his acceptance, "What do you suggest?" he said.

"It doesn't matter, Greg. It doesn't have to be traditional flowers or candy," Susan said, "Something in your own Housian way that says you love her."

"Housian?" he asked.

"You know what I mean, you're way," Susan said.

Their meals came and the two concentrated on their meals. When they were finished, House paid for the meal and they went back to the hospital.

"I'll meet you back down here in time for clinic duty. Oh, and thanks for lunch," Susan said as she headed to the lab. House nodded and went to Cuddy's office.

"Learn anything?" Cuddy asked.

"Maybe," House said.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six:

Friday morning found Susan carting a bag of oranges and another sack that contained her lunch and other miscellaneous items into the hospital. Wilson had just walked in the elevator and held the door open while she caught up and went inside. "Hungry?" he asked as he indicated the oranges.

"I'm using them as part of my discussion on moles today for class," she said.

Wilson raised his eyebrows in question and said, "Well, that should be interesting."

They walked down the hall together until Wilson turned in his corridor. Susan went on toward the conference room and went inside. Taub was there, but the others hadn't arrived yet. She walked over to the small refrigerator in the corner and put her lunch inside and closed the door.

"Craving oranges?" he asked.

"No, they're for moles," she said.

"Moles," he repeated.

"Yep," and then she was gone leaving Taub to wonder how oranges were supposed to treat moles.

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House walked in his office tossing his back pack in his chair before heading into the conference room to make his coffee. "She said they were for moles," Taub was saying.

"Moles," Chase repeated.

"Yes, moles," Taub said.

"What was for moles?" asked House

"Oranges," Taub answered. "Susan had a bag of oranges with her and when I asked her about them she said they were for moles."

House smirked but didn't say anything and headed out the door, "Where are you going?" Foreman asked.

"To class," he said as he left.

House stopped by Wilson's office, "You coming?" he asked.

"Yeah, don't want to miss this," Wilson said.

House and Wilson walked to Susan's classroom and sat in the back of the class. Susan saw them come in and smiled as they sat down. Susan passed out a worksheet to the class, House and Wilson each took one when the stack of worksheets came by their seats and looked them over while Susan worked her way back to the front of the class.

Susan started the class by asking if there were any questions from the worksheet reviewing the first two chapters. There were and she helped work a couple of problems from the worksheet. Having finished that, she started on today's lecture. "Is there anybody who knows what a mole is?" she asked. House and Wilson both raised their hands, "OK, anybody other than the two dork-wads in the back of the room know what a mole is?" she said laughing as the class turned around and looked at the two older men sitting in the back. When no one answered, Susan said "6.02x1023, otherwise known as Avogadro's Number. What is 6.02x1023 ?" she asked. A student raised her hand. Susan pointed at her.

"Avagadro's number," the student said.

"Which is?" Susan prompted. The student didn't say anything, "a mole," Susan answered for her. "A mole of "whatever" is 6.02x1023 "whatevers"," she continued signaling quote signs with her fingers with the "whatevers".

Susan continued to explain moles when the inevitable statement was made, "How can a mole be so many different things?" the student asked.

Susan explained that a mole was just the name of a quantity which happened to be 6.02x1023. The class stared at her blankly, so Susan went over to her bag of oranges, "Count with me," she said. Together the class counted out 12 oranges. "How many is 12?" she asked. Someone yelled out, "a dozen."

"Count with me," she said. Susan went to her bag of miscellaneous things and pulled out a box of paper clips. Together the class counted out 12 clips. "How many is 12?" she asked. Some else called out, "a dozen."

"Count with me," she said and repeated the process with 12 pencils and once again the answer was 'a dozen.' She walked over to the pile of oranges and asked the class, "How many is a dozen?"

"Twelve," came the answer.

"How many oranges are in a dozen?" she asked.

"Twelve,"

Susan paused for a moment and then asked, "How many oranges are in a _mole_ of oranges?"

Light bulbs clicked on all over the class, "6.02x1023" came multiple voices. She repeated the process for the clips and the pencils. "Awesome," she said picking up two oranges and walking halfway up the stairs toward the back row. She pitched each doctor an orange and said, "You have your answer, get out of here," with a smile. House and Wilson got up and left the room out the back door.

"She really is a good teacher," said Wilson. "I've never seen anybody explain moles like that before. It took me a couple weeks to figure out what my professor was trying to get across when I was a freshman,"

"Seriously?" House asked.

"Not everybody is as brilliant as the great Dr. House," Wilson said sarcastically.

Susan finished class, gathered her things and went to the conference room. She put the oranges on the table to share with the others and went back down to the lab to start her daily maintenance routine.

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House stared at the printout in his hand; it was Susan's lab report. Everything was normal, even the thyroid tests were normal. He had thought that a thyroid issue might be the reason for her mood swings and when that wasn't it, he tested her hormone levels. They were also normal and according to those levels, she hadn't entered menopause yet, so that wasn't it either. He needed to do a CT scan of her head, but how was he going to do that without her knowledge. He was going to have to drug her, there wasn't any other way. House sat trying to think of how to drug her without her realizing she'd been drugged.

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"No House, I'm not going to do it," Wilson said.

"You have to," House said.

"No, I don't. She told you she was fine and all the tests you've ran indicate that she's fine," Wilson argued.

"I need a head CT scan. Whatever the problem is, it's in her brain and blood tests aren't going to show it," he implored.

"How am I supposed to get her to a place where she doesn't realize she's being drugged?" Wilson asked. "The only way she won't know if she's being drugged if it she happens to be drugged just as she's going to sleep…..Oh no! I'm not doing that, besides she's already turned me down flat for a date."

"I'm not asking you to sleep with her, in fact if you touch her I'll punch you in the face," House said.

"Figure it out on your own House, I'm staying out of it," Wilson said.

"Fine, I'll take care of getting her to sleep – but you'll help me get her here and back" House said as he left Wilson's office.

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"Hey Susan," Susan looked toward the door and saw Martha walking in the lab. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing much at the moment, I'm getting ready to pack up and go home," she explained.

"Well, the guys and I are going out tonight and were wondering if you would like to come along. It's valentines and since none of us are dating, we thought we would celebrate 'Singles Awareness Day' together," Martha said.

Susan smiled, "'Single's Awareness Day', I like it. That's cute. Where are you going?"

"Shelly's bar down the street," Martha said.

"Oh, well you know I don't drink," Susan said.

"I know, they have non-alcoholic drinks there and their hamburgers are really good," Martha said.

"Ok, sure – why not. What time?" Susan asked.

"Meet us there at 7:00," she answered.

Susan went home and changed and then headed to Shelly's bar. She went inside and easily found the team sitting in a large booth in the back of the bar. "Hey," she said as she sat down. The team answered in turn and continued their discussion as the waiter came over. "What'll you have?" she asked.

"Iced tea would be fine, thank you," Susan said.

"Designated driver?" the waiter asked.

"Well, I'm driving anyway," Susan answered.

The waiter nodded and went to fill the drink order. Susan sat quiet as she listened to the doctors discuss their last case and the write up they were working on. "Susan, we're adding you as a contributing author on the paper," Foreman said.

"Why?" Susan asked.

"We wouldn't have diagnosed it without your help," Taub said.

"But I didn't run the test that clinched it for you, that was the lab in Bethesda," Susan countered.

"Doesn't matter, you're still part of the team and we're all co-authoring the paper," Chase said.

"Well, thank you. I appreciate it," Susan said.

"What's wrong, you seem rather down in the dumps lately," Martha asked.

"Nothing, I'm fine," Susan replied.

The evening went on, the fellows ordered dinner and the waiter re-filled Susan's tea, Chase asked, "Susan, have you ever had Long Island Tea?"

"No, how's it different that regular tea?" Susan asked.

"It just has favoring added, I bet you'd like it," he said. "I'll get one for myself and you can try some. If you like it, you can order your own."

Susan agreed she would try some of Chase's tea.

Martha's eyes went wide, "Susan, are you aware…."

"Martha," asked Foreman. "Would you go tell the waiter we need more chips please?" Martha furrowed her brow at Foreman, but got up to find the waiter. While Martha was wandering through the dance floor trying to get past all the people to the bar to find the waiter, the waiter arrived at their table with Chase's Long Island Tea and then left.

Chase handed her the tea and Susan took a sip. Her eyes went wide, "Wow. That has a very interesting flavor, what kind of tea leaves are used to make it?" Susan asked as she took another sip.

Martha was wandering her way back to the table when Chase spotted her. "I'm not really sure," Chase said as he looked down at his watch. "Oh," he said, "I've got to run, just keep the tea. I'll see you guys later." Chase left the table and discreetly grabbed Martha by the arm and led her out of the bar.

Foreman, Taub and Susan sat at the table a little longer. Susan managed to drink about half of the glass when things started getting fuzzy. She stood up, "You know, I'm not feeling …too….well, I….I think I should….go…" Taub stood up quickly and caught Susan before she fell to the floor.

"Wow, that didn't take long," he said.

"Alcohol virgin," Foreman said as he left money on the table to cover the bill and together they dragged Susan out of the bar. Outside, House and Wilson were waiting in Wilson's Volvo. They got out and helped put Susan in the back seat.

"She's really going to be pissed when she figures out what happened," Wilson said as he took off toward the hospital.

"Just get us there, I'll deal with her when she wakes up," House said.

Once at the hospital, Wilson went inside to find a wheelchair and the two men wheeled her into radiology. They ran the CT scan and found nothing of any interest. "We're missing something," House said.

"We're not missing anything. House you've done blood work and now you've done a CT, there is nothing wrong with her. She's perfectly healthy," he said.

House and Wilson wheeled Susan back out to Wilson's car and went to Susan's apartment. They took her inside and to her room. They laid her on her bed and House removed her shoes. "Think we should put her in her night clothes?" Wilson asked.

House glared at Wilson, "You just want to see her naked. No, we are not going to dress her for bed. She's not going to know how she got there as it is, if she wakes up in different clothes, it'll be worse."

"Are you going to stay here tonight?" Wilson asked.

"Yeah, she's never been drunk before. She might need some help," House replied.

"What about her car?" Wilson asked.

"We'll get it tomorrow," House said.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven:

Susan opened her eyes and then promptly shut them, "Oh my head," she said as she brought her arms up and covered her eyes. Susan rolled over and tried to sit up suddenly feeling very nauseous, "Oh, please no," she cried as she got up and ran to the bathroom.

House heard Susan retching in the bathroom and hobbled his way there. He grabbed a paper cup from the dispenser next to Susan's toothbrush and filled it with water. When Susan was finished, he handed her the cup. She rinsed out her mouth and sat back leaning against the well. "Oh, I feel awful. I must have eaten something bad," she said.

"Nope, you have a hangover," House said.

"A hangover?" Susan said. "No, I can't have a hang-over, I only drank tea last night."

"You drank Long Island Tea," House said.

"I did have some of that too. Chase gave me his when he had to leave. I drank about half of the glass. It tasted OK at first, but after the first couple of swallows it was just weird," she said.

"Long Island Tea is a mix of vodka, gin, tequila and rum," House explained.

Susan's eyes opened wide and then tears started forming, "Why would he do that, he knows I don't drink?" she cried. House helped Susan up and took her to her bed and laid her down. "Why are you here?" she asked after she settled down.

"I thought you could use some help this morning," he said.

"How did you know I was going to need help?" she asked.

"Because I told them to do it," House admitted.

Susan's mouth dropped open and then she slammed it shut. She turned over to face away from House, "Get out," she said.

"Susan," House started.

"I said get out," she repeated.

House didn't say anything more as he got up. He looked over at her and as soon as he was sure she was going to be OK, he walked out the door.

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Cuddy was staring at her laptop screen, fingering the open heart necklace she had discovered in her desk yesterday morning. He hadn't said anything to her, in fact she hadn't seen him all day yesterday, but she knew it was from House. She had been surprised that he had done anything at all and she wouldn't have made a big deal out of it if he hadn't, but this was sweet and it really meant a lot to her.

House walked in the door. Cuddy sat her laptop down and got up to give him a hug. "I've missed you," she said as she kissed him on the cheek.

She stepped back and he saw the necklace around her neck. "Looks good on you," he acknowledged.

"It's very beautiful, thank you," she said.

House shrugged it off, "Wasn't my idea."

"Susan or Wilson?" Cuddy asked.

"Susan," he replied.

"Well, whether you thought of doing anything or not, it's sweet. Thank you," she said as she kissed him again.

They went over to the couch and sat down. House turned on the TV and started flipping channels. "Susan's pissed at me," he said.

"Why?" Cuddy asked.

"I had the team get her drunk so I could run a CT on her while she was asleep," he replied.

"She should be pissed. House, why would you do that?" she asked.

"I told you, I wanted a CT scan," he said.

"Did you find anything?" she asked.

"No," he answered.

"Well, you deserve for her to be upset with you. I'm sure she'll forgive you eventually," Cuddy said shaking her head as she picked up her laptop to continue working on her report.

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Monday morning arrived, it was 9:30 and Susan had not yet arrived to work. The team was gathered around the conference room table, "We need to apologize," Chase said.

"I don't need to apologize for anything," Martha said. "If I had known what you were planning on getting her drunk, I would never have invited her to join us."

"Which is precisely why we didn't tell you," said Foreman.

"I don't know how I can continue to work with you people," Martha said.

"Oh can it," said Chase. "I'm tired of listening to your 'holier than thou' attitude. House had reason for us to do it, so you just need to accept it."

"If he wanted her to have a CT scan, he should have just asked her," she continued.

"And she would have refused," the voice came from the door. House walked in and went over to the coffee maker. "Has she been in yet?" he asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

Just then Susan walked in the door, put her lunch in the small refrigerator and walked back out not having said a word to anybody.

"I think it's safe to say she's still pissed," said Taub.

"Thank you for your astute observational skills," House said sarcastically as he went to his desk.

Susan walked in the classroom and began her second lecture on moles and molecular weights. At the end of class she told them that Wednesday they would review the first three chapters and that their first exam would be on Friday. She went to the lab to file a few things and decided to take an early lunch. She went to the conference room, got her lunch and made her way to the cafeteria. She stood in line to get a drink to go with her lunch and found a table and sat down. A shadow fell over her table and she looked up to see Dr. Chase, "May I join you?" he asked.

"Nope, go away," she said.

"I deserved that," he said. "I'd really like to apologize."

Susan looked at him, "I don't want to talk about it."

Chase left the cafeteria. It wasn't long before someone else was at her table, she was about to tell him what he could go do with himself when she looked up and saw it was Dr. James, "Oh, Dr. James how are you?" she said.

"It's David and may I join you?" he asked.

Susan gestured to the seat across from the table and David sat down. "I'm getting a lot of positive feedback about your class," he said.

Susan was a little embarrassed but thanked him. "I am enjoying it. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed teaching," she said.

"I'm sure I could talk to Dr. Cuddy into bringing you on full time if you like. I'm sure Dr. House is difficult to work for," he said.

"I know it sounds weird, but I enjoy working for Dr. House and before you say it, it's not just because he's my brother," she said. The cases are interesting and I get to perform a wide variety of lab techniques that most hospital lab techs never experience. Though, right now I admit I'm pretty upset with him," she added.

"Why's that?" he asked.

"Because he did something insane, I'm OK, but I'm going to let him stew a little before I go talk to him," she said not telling the professor what House had done to her. She still didn't know why and at some point she'd have to talk to him to find out what he was up to. That hangover was a horrible experience and if she had to experience that, she wanted to know why.

"My understanding is that he's always doing something insane," David said with a chuckle. "I also hear that you don't want to get on his bad side."

"No, that's probably not a good idea," Susan admitted.

"What does your husband think of him?" Stephen asked.

"Huh?" Susan asked and then noticed he was looking at her wedding ring. "Oh, I'm a widow. I just haven't been able to bring myself to not wear the ring," she explained as she twirled the ring around on her finger.

"You're rather young to be a widow," he said.

"It was unexpected," Susan said without anymore of an explanation.

David looked at his watch, "I have a meeting in 15 minutes. I guess I better get moving." He got up from the seat and then turned back toward her, "Would you mind if I called you sometime?"

Susan looked up at him for a moment studying him and then said, "Sure."

David walked away and headed out of the cafeteria. Susan got up, bussed her table then headed back to the lab.

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The next couple of days went by rather quickly. Susan was still angry with what they had done to her. She did her work quietly and efficiently only leaving the lab when necessary. Dr. House still didn't have a case, so there wasn't really any need for her to go to the conference room other than to store her lunch. She hadn't heard anymore from Dr. James, she supposed he was only being nice when he asked if he could call her sometime. She wondered if he were serious when he said he might be able to get her a teaching position full time. At the time she didn't even consider it, but as time wore on she thought maybe it would be better if she did. She was mulling over these thoughts when House walked in the lab and shut the door. He sat down in the chair across from her desk and didn't say anything.

Susan just stared back.

They probably sat there for 10 minutes when House leaned forward in the chair, put his chin in his hands and looked intently in Susan's eyes. Susan leaned forward as well and did the same. They stared each other down neither blinking for at least 5 minutes before Susan had to blink her eyes. She leaned back in the chair and laughed, "Alright, you win," she said.

House smirked, "I always win."

Susan grew somber again, "Why?" she asked.

"I thought I needed a CT scan and I knew you wouldn't just let me give you one," he said.

"You're right, I wouldn't," she said.

"So, you see – I had too," House explained.

"No, you didn't. You could have just dropped it. I told you I was fine, I was just a little down," she said. "I am fine."

"You're not fine," House said, "You're not acting like yourself, you're moody and temperamental. There's nothing wrong with your thyroid, your hormone levels are normal, your labs look fantastic and your CT is clean, but there is still something wrong."

"And you have this overwhelming desire to find out what that is," Susan said. "Why can't you leave it alone?"

"Do you know me? Hi, I'm Greg House," he put out his hand to shake hers.

Susan reached out and grabbed his hand and put it in both of hers. "Not everything is a puzzle that needs to be solved Greg. Sometimes you just need to let things go. If something was wrong that you could fix, I would come to you, but you can't. Nobody can fix this, I just have to deal with it alone," Susan said.

"You're not alone Susan," he said as he pulled back his hand.

"I know I'm not, but even when you are not alone, there are still some things you have to deal with on your own," she replied.

House nodded agreement and got up to leave. "Are you still angry?"

"No, but don't do it again," Susan said. "I have my reasons for not drinking Greg and maybe I'll tell you sometime, but for now just please respect my wishes."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight:

Susan entered the store and headed over to the bedroom furniture. She had put this off long enough and it was time to get her old stuff replaced. A sales person came over to her and asked if he could show her anything. She told him what she was looking for and he led her over to a corner that had several bedroom suits to choose. Susan wanted wood trim with a medium stained finish. She also wanted a bed with a headboard, matching night stands and dresser. The sales person showed her one bedroom suit that had a footboard that had hidden within it a TV stand that would raise and lower with a push of a button. Susan didn't see much need for that as she didn't watch TV in her bedroom, plus it was quite a bit more expensive than the other arrangements. Susan found the bedroom suit that she liked, but she was disappointed to learn that it didn't come with a double size bed. "You wouldn't want to downgrade to a double anyway," the salesman said.

"I don't need a king size bed," Susan said. "It's just a waste of space."

"We have it in a queen, the salesman said, but it just doesn't come in a double. A queen would still give you additional space in your room."

Susan hedged, "I don't know. I probably should just stay with what I have, this is pretty expensive anyway."

Susan turned to leave when the salesman stopped her. "What if I were to knock off $200 from the cost of the entire bedroom suit? Would you consider it then?"

Susan turned back around and looked at it, she really did want it. It was much nicer than the mismatched set she had at the apartment. "I don't know," she said.

"$300 off?" the salesman asked.

Susan wondered how far down she could get him to go, "Take $600 off, give me free delivery and take away my old stuff and I'll take it."

"I'll have to talk to my manager. I'll be right back." The salesman left and went into an office where she heard him talking to his manager.

When the salesman came back out he offered $400 off and they would deliver it free and take away her old furniture.

Susan tried for $450, but they wouldn't budge any further, so she took the deal, paid for the furniture and set it up to be delivered the following Saturday.

As Susan drove home, she was rather proud of herself thinking she had made a pretty good deal. It wasn't long however before that voice in her head told her that she probably paid exactly what they wanted her to pay for it, there really wasn't any reason for her to be proud of herself. She'd just wasted $1500 on furniture she didn't really need. What she had was good enough. That money should have gone toward Laura's tuition. Susan almost turned around to cancel the transaction, but she managed to keep driving toward her apartment. _It's OK_, she told herself, _it OK to reward yourself once and a while_.

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"What about an fMRI?" Foreman suggested.

"No, she has to be awake for that one and she's not going to let us do it," House said.

"Have you asked?" Martha asked.

"She told me she wouldn't have allowed the CT scan if she had known, that's an implied 'No' for every other test," House said.

"We could lie to her and tell her it's to normalize the instrument," Taub suggested.

"Like she would fall for that," House said.

"Oh good night! It's not enough that you guys got me drunk to do a test I didn't want, now you're scheming to get me to do another one," Susan exclaimed from the doorway. "What is it with you, Greg? I told you there is nothing wrong with me."

The fellows were surprised at her use of his first name.

"What, you've never heard my name before?" House asked as he looked at them.

"OK, Dr. House," Susan said switching back into work language. "If you really want to do an fMRI on me, I'll let you – but I'm telling you it's a waste of time and resources. When and where?" she asked with a sigh.

Four hours later Susan met the fellows in radiology for the fMRI. Martha helped her get ready for the test and then House kicked her and the rest of the fellows out of the room. Susan and House were alone. House turned on the instrument and asked Susan questions which she answered. An hour later they were finished, "Well?" Susan asked.

"You're perfectly normal," House said.

Susan gave him a look of '_I told you so'_ and went behind the curtain to get dressed. When she came back out, they walked together back to his office. The fellows had left for the day and House gathered his things. "What are you doing tonight?" Susan asked.

"Nothing in particular," he said. "Cuddy has a board meeting and the babysitter is with Rachel. I figured I would go harass Wilson or something."

"Why don't you come over and I'll fix you some dinner," Susan said.

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There was a knock on the door and House walked in when Susan opened the door. "Smells good," he said.

"Roast with potatoes," Susan said. "It's been slow cooking all day, so it should be nice and tender." House's mouth was already watering in anticipation. "I just need to steam the vegetables and make the gravy and it'll be ready. Feel free to turn on the TV or whatever."

Susan went back into the kitchen to finish the meal. It wasn't long before she heard the sounds of her piano playing. She was surprised he would play on her spinet when he had such a nice piano of his own. It was nice hearing the piano, she missed it while Laura was at school and Susan's playing wasn't at nearly as accomplished as Laura or Greg's. A few minutes later dinner was ready and Susan called Greg to the table. Dinner was quiet and House concentrated on his meal. He ate seconds and then thirds before he leaned back in his chair and belched. Susan laughed at him, "I guess you were hungry."

"It was good, I think I'm going to have to make it a practice to start stealing your lunch instead of Wilson's," he said.

Susan smiled as she got up to start clearing the table. House helped her clear the table and straighten up the kitchen. "You don't have to help," Susan said as she opened the dishwasher to load in the dirty dishes. House didn't answer as he turned on the water to pre-rinse them and handed them to Susan to load. While they were doing dishes, Susan started talking, "Jeff never helped me with the dishes."

"Cuddy has me well trained at this point," House said.

"Nobody has you trained, if you're helping do the dishes it's because you want to be helpful," Susan replied. "That's sweet, I'm sure she appreciates it."

"She puts in a full day too, most of the time her days are longer than mine," House acknowledged.

When they were finished with the dishes, Susan dried her hands and reached over to put her ring back on her finger. House grabbed her hand and took the ring from her. "Susan, Jeff is gone. It's time to move on."

Susan took the ring back from him but she didn't put it on her finger. She turned it in her hands looking at it, "Today is the anniversary of Jeff's death," she said as the tears started welling up in her eyes. "Sorry," she said as she wiped her eyes and slipped the ring back on her finger and went to the living room. House followed behind.

Susan sat down on the couch and handed the remote to House who shook his head, "You choose," he said. Susan turned on the television and flipped the channel until she found WWF and set the remote down, "Is this something you would normally watch?" he asked.

"Not really. I thought you might enjoy it," she said.

"I didn't ask you to choose something you thought I would like, choose something you want to watch," House said. Susan just looked at him. "Seriously, I want to see what you like," he added.

Susan hit the menu button to show the listings and turned to CSI. "I like to watch them to see if they get the lab work right," she explained. "It's kind of fun to catch the mistakes. Sometimes I think it would be cool to be a consultant for a show like that."

House smirked and then settled back to watch the show. After a few moments, Susan spoke, "Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did," House said, but waited for her to continue.

"Do you think I'm attractive? I mean, I know I'm your sister and you don't think of me that way, but as a guy? I mean, I know I'm old and all, but I was thinking and…"

"Would you shut up? I can't answer the question if you keep talking," House said.

"Sorry, never mind," Susan said looking downcast.

"No, not 'sorry, never mind', Jeez Susan – what is it with you lately? You act like you've spent the better part of your life apologizing for your every word," House said and then it hit him. _Oh crap_, he thought. He should have realized. He came from an abusive family; he should have recognized the signs. She wasn't just physically rejected by Jeff; he abused her and she blamed herself for it. Why was she acting this way just now? She'd been in New Jersey for nearly a year and she'd never acted this way before.

"Susan, you _are_ attractive and no, I'm not just saying that because you're my sister. You don't look like you're in your 20's, but you're not in your 20's. You are holding your age well I doubt very seriously there are very many people that would guess that you were 44 years old," House told her. He fell silent at that point thinking about his recent revelation and then he asked, "Susan, did Jeff abuse you?"

"No, he never hit me," she said.

"Not all abuse is physical," he said. "Did Jeff abuse you verbally or emotionally?"

Susan looked at House a bit confused, "No, I mean, he crawled my case when I did or said stupid things, but he only yelled at me when I deserved it," Susan said.

_Deserved it?_ he thought. "How often did he yell at you?

"I don't know, I can be pretty stupid sometimes," she said looking toward the TV knowing that she couldn't look Greg in the eye.

"You are not stupid," House said, "answer the question."

"Sometimes he would get upset with me several days in a row, other times he would only get upset with me on the weekends. It was entirely dependant on how often I screwed up. For some reason weekends were more difficult" she said. Wanting to get away from this particular subject Susan asked, "Do you know Dr. James?"

"He's in charge of the basic sciences division of allied health, but I don't really know him. Cuddy worked with him to get you the teaching position," he said. "Why?"

"He asked if he could call me sometime," Susan said, "But he hasn't, so I think he was just being polite." Susan went quiet again and then said, "It's probably for the better anyway."

OK, that was it. House had enough; he had to get to the bottom of this. He'd decided to put his investigation aside because there wasn't any physical reason for Susan to be acting this way. She didn't think Jeff was abusive, but House had never seen Susan act or say anything stupid, except for this recent self-depreciation. Her recent moodiness and the self-depreciation had to be related.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine:

Two days later, House was sitting toward the back of the student union at the university when he saw Laura enter the room and look around. He raised his cane up and she saw him. After she made her way to his table, she put her backpack down and sat across from him. "I was surprised to get your message, is everything OK with mom?"

"There's nothing physically wrong with her," he confirmed.

"Oh good," Laura said with relief. "So what brings you?"

"How long do you have before your next class?" House asked.

"I'm done for the day," she answered. "I have an exam to study for, but I already know the material, so I can wait before I review."

"I'm hungry, let's go get something to eat and we'll talk," House said.

House and Laura were seated by the hostess at the Olive Garden. They placed their order for drinks as they looked through the menu. After they had chosen their meals, House asked Laura what life was like at home.

"What do you mean?" she asked. "It was pretty normal I think. Mom and Dad both worked and I went to school. Mom encouraged me to stay busy with sports and music."

"Did both of your parents come to your events?" House asked.

"Mom came to more things than Dad, but they both did a good job of coming to my events. There were a lot of kids in my school whose parents didn't come to anything. I always felt very fortunate," she said.

"What about around the house?" he asked.

"Well, on the weekends we got caught up on our housework and stuff. I didn't really like weekends at home. I tried to find things to do as much as possible," she said.

"Because you didn't like housework?" he asked

"Well, not so much that," she paused as the waitress came to take their order and then continued. "Saturday mornings mom and dad were in their room for a long time and I would hear them talking. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but nearly every morning when they came out I could tell mom had been crying. She tried to hide it from me."

The food came and Laura took a bite of her food and swallowed, "Then all day long and into Sunday, Dad would spend the day griping about one thing or another. For the most part, I just went in my room to get out of the way unless I found a way to get out of the house, but sometimes I could hear him yelling at mom and insulting her. Sometimes she would talk back, but mostly she just didn't say anything and would try to fix whatever he was upset about."

"What kinds of things would set your dad off?" he asked.

"Not much of anything really, he had a volatile temper," she said.

"Did he ever hit your mom?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so. He just yelled at her a lot," Laura said confirming what Susan had said.

"Don't get me wrong, I loved my dad very much. We teased each other a lot and had a lot of fun, but I really didn't like the way he came down on mom so much. I really didn't think she deserved it. Sometimes I would ask her about it and she would brush it off saying that she had just disappointed him again, but everything would be OK and not to worry about it." Laura added.

When the meal was over House paid and took Laura back to the university. "Thanks for talking to me Laura," he said.

"Sure, and thanks for lunch. It was good." she said. "See you around." She got out and started to walk away from the car.

House rolled down his window, "Laura!" Laura turned back to find House pulling out his wallet. He handed her $100.

"What's this for?" she asked.

"Spending money," he said and pulled away leaving Laura to stare after him. Shrugging, she put the money in her pocket and headed to the dorm.

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"Where've you been?" asked Foreman when House walked in his office.

"Not here," he answered as he sat at his desk and turned on his computer. "Do we have a case?"

"Not yet," Foreman answered.

"Then why are you here? Go find us something, do your clinic hours or just go jerk off, anything that takes you away from here," House said.

Foreman rolled his eyes and walked out of the office.

House pulled up the staff directory and found Dr. James. He read his university bio and then using Cuddy's password broke into the personnel files. David James was a widower in his mid-forties with one son, twelve years old. His wife died of breast cancer three years previous. Most of the rest of the information was typical and boring. House couldn't see anything in his file that would make him a non-candidate for seeing Susan. He decided to fish Cuddy for information.

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"You've been rather scarce the last few days," Cuddy said as House walked in her office.

"I've been being brotherly and uncley," he replied.

Cuddy smiled at him, "Good to hear it."

"What do you know about David James?" House asked as he sat down.

"Nice guy, he's a widower. His wife died of breast cancer several years back, I think Wilson was her oncologist if I remember correctly. Why?" she asked.

"Susan mentioned meeting him the other day," he replied.

"Well, I imagine he wanted to meet the person I insisted on putting in place of Professor Hastings," she said. "What did she have to say?"

"Not much really, she just asked if I knew him. I guess he's shown some interest in her," he said.

"Well, she could certainly do a lot worse," Cuddy said.

"I don't want her to get hurt, she's had enough of that," House said. Cuddy looked at him inquisitively. "Between some things she's said and when I talked to Laura earlier today, I've gotten the impression that things between her and her husband were not as they should have been."

"All relationships have ups and downs House, you know that," Cuddy said.

"But not all relationships include berating your wife until she loses all sense of self-worth," he replied. "I should go meet him," House said.

"You should do no such thing. Leave it alone House; let her find her own way. If she's really as damaged as you think she is, she needs to find someone without interference," Cuddy explained. "Does Susan have any girlfriends?" she asked.

"Honestly, I don't think she has any friends," House replied, "I haven't ever seen her hang out with anybody and when I drop by to visit her at her apartment, she's always home."

"Maybe I'll invite her to go shopping with me and Julia when we go next time. A little female companionship might do her some good," Cuddy mused.

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Monday's class was over and Susan was sitting at her desk grading her student's exams from the previous Friday. She was about half-way through them. She had graded the first two pages of each exam and there were four pages total. So far, she was pleased with what she was seeing. The students had dealt well, for the most part, with the accelerated chapters. She hoped the trend would continue through the rest of the semester. As she was starting to grade the third page of the exam, a rather serious looking woman entered her lab carrying a laptop briefcase and a rather thick folder. "May I help you?" Susan asked.

"I'm here for the lab inspection," the lady said.

"What inspection?" Susan asked.

"CAP," the lady answered.

"Oh, well I hadn't heard anything about it. Let me find you a space to set up and then you can tell me what all you need to see," Susan said.

"The lab was informed two weeks ago that we would be here today," she informed Susan.

"I'm sure," said Susan. "Sometimes information doesn't flow well from the main lab to this one. This is a specialty lab in the hospital, so you know how it is."

"Well, the lab manager in the main lab made it quite clear that I needed to be sure to inspect this lab before the main lab when he confirmed the inspection dates with us," she said.

_I'm sure he did_, thought Susan to herself. "How many days do you think you'll be around for the inspection?"

"At least three," she replied. "The rest of the inspection team will be here tomorrow and we hope to finish up by the day after."

Susan finished clearing a space on the lab bench for the inspector to set up her laptop and then started gathering the materials needed for the inspection. After she had pulled down her maintenance notebook, procedural manual, and user manuals for the instruments, calibration reports and QC reports, she gave the inspector her phone number and told her to call if she needed anything and that she would return shortly. Susan made her way to Dr. Cuddy's office and knocked on the door, "Come on in Susan," Cuddy said.

"Did you know we had a lab inspection today?" Susan asked.

"Yes," she acknowledged.

"Is there any particular reason why I wasn't informed?" Susan asked.

"I thought you were, Chris said that he told everybody when he confirmed the date," Cuddy said.

"Stands to reason," Susan said and she turned to leave.

"Susan?" Cuddy said, "Is Chris giving you problems?"

"Nothing I can't handle. Don't worry about it," and then Susan left and returned to the lab.

"You still doing OK?" she asked the inspector when she walked back in.

"Yes," she answered and then returned to going through the various notebooks.

Susan sat back down at her desk and picked up her grading again just as Dr. House walked in the lab. He glanced at the inspector and then looked questioningly at Susan, "Who's the chick?" he asked quietly.

"She's the lab inspector for CAP," Susan answered.

"Lab inspector? I didn't know there was an inspection today," he said.

"Neither did I," Susan said. "Don't worry, it'll be fine. Everything is in order."

"I'm not worried, I'm just surprised we hadn't heard about it," House said.

"You shouldn't be," Susan said. "It's right up his alley. Not only did he not tell us about the inspection, he told Cuddy he told everybody and he also made sure that the inspector would come to our lab first so that we wouldn't hear about it through the grapevine."

"I need to see your MSDS notebook," the inspector said interrupting their conversation.

Susan got up and went over to the book case to get the notebook and took it over to the inspector. "Did you need something?" Susan asked House when she returned to her desk.

"Nah – I'm hiding," House said.

"This isn't one of your more original hiding spots. Who are you hiding from?" Susan asked.

"Cuddy, she's trying to get me to do more clinic hours this week, and since we don't have a case right now I don't have any excuse not to do it," he explained.

"Well, if you're going to sit down here, I'm going to put you to work grading, so this is your choice, either go to clinic duty or grade homework papers," Susan said.

"Evil women conspiring together, that's all I need. I'll go find another hiding place," House said and left.

Susan went back to grading when the inspector spoke up, "Was that Dr. House?" she asked.

"Yes," Susan answered. "This is his lab."

"I notice you have a lot of unique procedures that I don't normally see in a clinical lab," she said.

"Well, Dr. House has a rather unique department, so uncommon procedures are not so uncommon in here," Susan said. Susan's phone beeped. She looked down and read the text, "I need to slip out of here a moment; will you be OK for a while?"

"Sure. I have your number if I need anything else," the inspector said.

Susan left and headed to Dr. Cuddy's office. Cuddy's assistant stopped her at the door, "I'm sorry Susan, but Dr. Cuddy has someone in her office right now. You can't go in."

"She paged me," showing the message to the assistant.

"No, that wasn't from her. She's been in that meeting for the last hour," the assistant said shaking her head.

Susan looked the message again and shook her head. She decided to go back to the lab and detoured through the clinic when she saw Dr. House coming out of an exam room with Martha, "Shouldn't you be down in the lab with the inspector?" House asked.

"Dr. Cuddy paged me to her office, but apparently she didn't page me to her office," Susan said showing House the text. "Her assistant insists that she didn't send that text to me. Anyway, I'm heading back to the lab." Susan headed off to the lab while House and Martha entered the next exam room.

When Susan arrived in the lab, the inspector was looking rather grim, "What's wrong, do you need me to get more records for you?" Susan asked.

"No," she said. "I need to see your credentials," she said. Susan went to her desk, opened her file drawer and pulled out her credentials file. Inside the file were her transcripts from her bachelor and master's degrees in chemistry, her ASCP certification in histology, her training certifications for the instruments in her lab and multiple completion certificates for continuing education. Also inside the file were her skills and competency exams and the required test for color blindness as well as a copy of her job description as required by CLIA all of which were signed by Dr. House. Susan handed the file to the inspector who took the file and added, "I also need to see a picture ID and a copy of your birth certificate."

Now that was odd, nobody had ever asked for that before in any inspection that she had ever been through. Susan took her ID badge from around her neck and handed it to the inspector, but she shook her head, "No, I need a legal photo ID like your drivers license," she explained.

Susan went back to her desk and opened her purse to get her drivers license. When she brought it to the inspector she said, "I don't have a copy of my birth certificate here, not that it would help you. I changed my name when I married."

The inspector didn't say anything as she looked at Susan's driver's license and then handed it back. "If I can ask, I have never been asked to prove my identity at an inspection before, what is that all about?"

"I can't say," the inspector said.

"Is it OK if I bring my birth certificate to you tomorrow?" Susan asked. "I'll have to bring it from home."

The inspector nodded her agreement and went back to examining the credentials file.

Susan sat back at her desk and continued to grade exams. She was getting hungry. She'd already skipped lunch not wanting to leave the inspector for any length of time in case she needed something. Finally the inspector got up from her chair and started her physical inspection of the lab. She opened the refrigerator and made sure the reagents were all in date and were properly labeled with receipt dates. She checked each cabinet for reagents and supplies making sure that everything was labeled properly and hadn't expired. It wasn't long before she was finished and she packed up her laptop and other inspection documents. "I'll be in the main lab tomorrow. Bring me those documents as soon as you get in," she said and then headed out the door.

Susan headed upstairs to the conference room, "Well she's finished with our lab," Susan announced when she walked in.

"How'd it go?" asked Martha.

"Fine I think, but I won't know until the inspection of the rest of the labs are finished. I still have to prove my identity with her, but I was able to provide her with everything she needed to see. Still, it would have been nice to know about the inspection when the hospital was informed," Susan said. "I would have had everything sitting out for her in advance."

"Since when do you have to prove your identity for a lab inspection?" asked Foreman.

"Must be something new," Susan acknowledged. "Every other inspection I've been through the inspectors were satisfied with the credentials files and work IDs. This was the first time I've been asked to provide my driver's license and a copy of my birth certificate. I'm going to have to look for my birth certificate when I get home if I even still have a copy."

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Chris smiled to himself as he thought about his conversation with the lab inspector when he had lured Susan out of the lab with a 'page' from Dr. Cuddy. At first the inspector was resistant to what Chris was saying because her lab seemed to be in such good order that she couldn't imagine there was anything illegal about the lab, but as the lab manager for the main lab at the hospital, his word carried quite a bit of weight, though he made it clear that this lab was not under his purview, and so any issues she found were not his responsibility. While he didn't say anything specific, he implied that Susan did not meet the CLIA requirements for human testing and he also implied that Susan regularly diagnosed and treated patients. Of course, he had no evidence of this, but he'd heard enough from his partner, to know that it was true. He wished Jeffrey still worked at the hospital; he missed his lunchtime liaisons with his lover.

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Back at the apartment, Susan was rummaging through her personal files. She came across Laura's birth certificate and immunization records smiling slightly as she read through them with images of her baby running through her mind. After a moment she set them aside and kept looking through the file. Next she found her marriage certificate. She read through it again word for word and as she read the witness signatures, she wondered what had happened to Chad and Lisa. They had been their best couple friends before and after the wedding and they used to get together to play cards or watch movies together on a fairly regular basis, but after a couple of years they quit coming over and eventually moved away. Susan hadn't heard from them in years. She decided to take the marriage certificate with her to work tomorrow so she could show the inspector her name change since her married name was on all her work documents. Finally after several more minutes, Susan came across a copy of her birth certificate. She sat it with her marriage certificate and re-filed all the other documents back into the box.

The phone rang and Susan answered, "Hey mom," Laura said.

"Hi sweetheart, how are you doing?" Susan asked.

"I'm fine. I was just calling to see how you were doing. Last time we talked, you seemed really depressed," she said. "I was so worried after I got of the phone with you that I called Uncle Greg."

"Well that explains all the extra attention I've been receiving of late," Susan said. "I'm fine Laura, I've just been thinking about your dad a lot. February is a hard month you know."

"I know mom, but you know dad's been gone for a year now, I think you need to get back in the game," Laura encouraged.

"Laura, I'm far past my prime at this point, there isn't much 'game' left in me anymore," Susan said.

"Baloney," Laura said. "You know I'm just teasing you when I say that you're old, don't you? You have plenty of time to find someone and fall in love again. Heck, you could probably still even have another baby if you wanted," Laura argued. "I know you always wanted more than just one."

"Oh, Laura, I know I'm not old and yes technically I _could_ still have another baby, but it's highly unlikely at this point. I am middle-aged, and men aren't looking for middle-aged women. They want young hotties, and young-hottie, I'm not."

"No, but you are a good catch, dad realized it – I'm sure other men would too," Laura said.

Susan sighed to herself; at least she had done a good job hiding her father's disappointment in her from their child. "Maybe you're right," Susan said without conviction, mostly just to satisfy her daughter. "So how are things going at school?" she asked shifting topics.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

Susan went straight to a copy machine when she got into work and made a copy of both her birth certificate and her marriage license. She dropped by her lab and put her stuff away and set the original documents on her desk. She took the copies she had just made to the main lab where she found the inspector speaking with her team before they started inspecting the various areas of the main laboratory. When she finished Susan got her attention and handed her the documents. "I went ahead and made a copy of my marriage license as well so you could see the name change," she said as she handed over the documents. She just heading out the door when she was stopped by the lab manager, "Why are you down here?" he asked.

"I needed to provide more documentation for the inspector," she said.

"I told you not to step foot in my lab again," he said. Susan just shook her head and left. This was stupid she thought to herself. If House was nicer, she wouldn't be going through this with this guy – but then again, if House was nicer, the board wouldn't have seen fit to create the specialty lab and she wouldn't be here working for him either. It was a vicious circle. She really thought after the whole Jeffrey fiasco that she would have proven herself to the rest of the hospital staff. Why did she always have to prove herself? What was wrong with her? She thought about her conversation with Laura the night before and thought to herself again that she was tired of being someone else's disappointment. She was better off alone.

When she walked in the lab, House was sitting at her desk reading her marriage license, "Why did you bring this in?" he asked.

"To show the name change to prove I was who I said I was to the inspector," Susan said. "I just dropped off copies to her down in the main lab. Ran into Chris while I was there, he was none to happy about my presence in his lab."

"He needs to get over it, sometimes you have to go to the main lab," House said. "Do you want me to talk to him?"

"Hardly, you're the reason he's so hateful to begin with. You'll just make it worse. I can handle it," Susan said. "Why are you here? Are you hiding out again?"

"No. You and I have a meeting in Cuddy's office in about 15 minutes," House said.

"Concerning?" Susan asked.

"I don't know, but she was not happy when she called me," House said.

"Great. – That's all I need, more confrontation. I suppose we should go then," Susan said with a sigh. House and Susan left the lab and made their way to Dr. Cuddy's office. When they arrived, Dr. Cuddy directed Susan to sit in the chair opposite her and House went over to the couch and sat down.

"Susan, there has been an accusation made that you are diagnosing and treating patients," she said.

Susan's mouth dropped open in shock. She turned to look at Dr. House, "You don't believe this do you?" she asked. House looked as surprised at the revelation as Susan.

"Susan, you need to direct your attention to me," said Cuddy.

"Sorry, I'm just stunned by the accusation. Of course, I don't diagnose or treat patients. I'm a lab rat, not a physician. I'm not qualified," Susan explained.

"You do have a lot of experience and I know that you recognize certain disease states," Cuddy explained.

"True, but I don't diagnose anybody. Sometimes when Dr. House or the fellows order certain tests and I see the results, I have a fairly good idea what test they are going to order next to confirm. So, I've ran tests pro-actively without an actual order before. I know I'm not supposed to do that, but so far I've managed to run the tests they planned on ordering," she explained. "If I'm not sure, I ask."

"Give me an example," Cuddy ordered.

"If they've ordered a hepatic function test and I see high values of AST and ALT, I'll often go ahead and run a hepatitis panel to they can rule that out as a potential diagnosis. I also automatically reflex to an a1c if someone has a high fasting glucose," Susan said. "There are a few others like that that I've done. The other day I had to prepare a bone marrow aspirate and while I created that slide, I decided to create a smear of the blood sample as well just in case they needed to see it."

"Dr. House, have you been aware that she has been running tests without orders?" Cuddy asked.

"I see the results," he said. "I don't disagree with any of the tests she's ran."

"So what do you do if the doctors don't eventually order the tests?" Cuddy asked.

"I don't send it to billing," Susan answered.

"But the results are still recorded?" Cuddy asked.

"Well, yes – I ran the tests; I don't think I should remove the results from the database. I'm not sure that I can anyway."

"Susan, you can't run tests without doctor's orders. That's a violation of hospital policy and state regulations," Cuddy said.

"But if I know what they are going to run next, isn't it in the patient's best interest to get the results faster than I would by waiting on an order?" she asked.

"Just don't do it anymore," Cuddy said. "Now, about making a diagnosis…"

"I don't diagnose anything," Susan interrupted.

"What about Georgia? You told Martha that she had cancer several months ago," Cuddy asked.

"I was showing her how to process the tissue specimens and when we finished staining, I _said_ she had cancer to Martha because I recognized it, but I took images of the slides and sent them to Dr. House. I didn't document my findings or even tell Dr. House what I saw. Dr. House made the diagnosis," Susan explained.

"Alright, you can go now. Dr. House, I need you to stay behind," Cuddy said.

Susan left Cuddy's office rather shaken by the whole ordeal. "What's going on?" House asked Cuddy. "Susan hasn't done anything wrong."

"She can't run tests without orders," Cuddy said, "You know that."

"She hasn't run anything that I wouldn't have ordered. Her being pro-active like that has saved precious time on several patients at this point," House argued.

"Regardless, the regulations are clear. She can't test without an order," Cuddy countered. House was about to comment back when Cuddy interrupted him, "Look, if you want to set up 'standing orders' for reflex tests when there are specific results, then go ahead. That will solve most of the problem…"

"Do you have any idea how many combinations of results there are that I have follow-up testing for? It'll take forever," He said.

"Then you better get started," Cuddy said dismissing him.

Before House left he said, "You never answered my question."

Cuddy sighed, "The inspector came by my office early this morning. She started out by telling me that the Diagnostic Lab was the best lab she had ever seen and that the record keeping was impeccable, but despite that she implied impropriety and I have to investigate. She didn't say anything about testing without orders, so she must not have seen anything that indicated that, but did mention diagnosis and treatment."

"The lab records for inspection wouldn't show either of those kinds of occurrences anyway, it's all about making sure calibrations and quality control records are well kept, corrections for when things fail, reporting documentation and employee qualifications, stuff like that. How would an inspector even have evidence for diagnosis and treatment in lab records? Medical records sure, not lab records. Someone had to bring it to her attention. Susan was with her all day yester…" House broke off suddenly as his eyes widened with realization and walked out the door without another word.

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Susan sat at her desk drumming her fingers with one hand and holding a business card in the other. She picked up the phone and looked at the business card in her hands. She dialed the extension, "Yes, this is Susan Watkins. May I speak with Dr. James please?" Susan listened as the admin explained that Dr. James has been out of the office all week, but should return Friday. Susan left a message with her to have him call when he got back in the office.

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House walked in the main lab, passed the processing techs and walked straight into the lab manager's office. He slammed his cane down hard on the desk causing Chris to jump several inches out of his chair, "What are you trying to pull?"

"What are you talking about?" Chris said; his heart racing.

"You know what I'm talking about," House said, "and I'm here to tell you to lay off Susan. Your beef is with me, not her. You have issues with me, be a man and come to me – oh wait I forgot, you're not a man you're a puppet for your _buddy_ Jeffrey." Seeing the look on his face House continued, "Oh yeah, I know all about your lunchtime liaisons in the janitor closets. Jeffrey lost his job and unless you want to lose yours, you'll back off." House started out the office but turned at the door, "By the way, I hope you brought a change of clothes," noting the puddle on the floor.

Chris looked down, "Oh god," he said putting his face in his hands.

Having heard the entire exchange, the lab techs watched House leave and as soon as he was out of the lab, the whispering began. It wouldn't be long before this piece of gossip was all over the hospital.

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"Susan?" the voice said, "This is David, my admin said you called."

"I thought you were out of the office until Friday," Susan responded.

"I am, but I check in from time to time and she said you'd left a message. I was going to call you the other night, but I had to suddenly leave town for a family emergency," he said.

"Is everything OK?" Susan asked.

"It is now. My mother had a dizzy and fainting spell and dad took her to the hospital, but she's fine now and they are releasing her to go home tomorrow. Turns out it was just a case of the flu. After we get her settled at home, I'll be back in the office." he explained. "So was there a reason you called?"

Susan hesitated but then said, "I was wondering about your offer to bring me on teaching full time."

"I thought you like working for Dr. House?"

"I do, but there have been several situations occur that make me think that I'm not the right person for the job," Susan said.

"Like?" he asked.

"I'd rather not get into the details, but if that offer is still open I'd like to consider it," Susan said. David was silent for a few moments, "It's OK if you've changed your mind," she said. "I'm sure I can find something somewhere else."

"No, no don't do that. You don't need to leave. I was just thinking that I needed to talk to Dr. Cuddy. We probably wouldn't be able to make it official until the start of the next academic year, but I bet we can work something out before then in an unofficial capacity," he said. "I tell you what; I'll be back in the office Friday. Let's get together for lunch and talk about our options."

"Sounds great, thanks," Susan said. Susan hung up the phone. She didn't want to leave the diagnostics lab, but it was obvious at this point that she just didn't belong.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11:

Friday morning found Susan in class handing out the exams the student had taken the previous week. She called their names and as they raised their hands, she handed them their test. The class average on the test was an 82% with grades ranging from 68 to 100%. Overall Susan was pleased with the results.

"Are you going to curve the test grade?" one of the students asked.

"No. Not with an 82% as the class average. There just isn't any reason to. Those of you that didn't do as well as you would have liked still have two more exams to get your grade up. Also remember that you have homework grades that should help with your final semester score," she explained. "I'd like everybody to go over your exams and make corrections on your own. This will help you on your final exam at the end of the semester. If after you've made corrections, you still have questions, come to my lab and I'll go over them with you." Susan went back to the front of the class and started the lecture for today's material. She really hated rushing through things so much, but there wasn't time to slow down. So far however, the students were doing OK with the faster pace.

Susan walked out of the classroom when lecture was finished and found David standing outside waiting on her. "I believe we have a lunch meeting," he said.

"Yes, let me take my stuff to the lab and then we can head over to the cafeteria," she said.

"I was thinking about going off campus if that's OK," he suggested.

Susan shrugged her shoulders, "That's fine."

The walked together to the lab where she put her things away and grabbed her purse, "Where are we meeting for lunch?" she asked as they started walking out of the hospital.

"Why don't we just ride together? David suggested.

Susan hesitated, "I'm sorry, I don't want to seem rude, but I would prefer to drive separate."

"Not a problem at all. There's a deli on the corner of 6th and Elm. I'll meet you there in say…" he looked at his watch, "15 minutes?"

Susan nodded as they exited the door and separated to go to their own vehicles. Susan hoped he wasn't offended by choosing to drive herself. The thought of being trapped in a vehicle with a man she didn't really know was a little unsettling. Even though he was probably a perfect gentleman, she wasn't willing to take that chance.

As David drove to the deli he realized that he shouldn't have offered to ride together. It might even be considered to be a little forward to have their meeting away from the hospital, but he really wanted to get to know her in addition to talking to her about increasing her teaching responsibilities and it was easier to do that away from work. He hoped he hadn't ruined his chances.

MDMDMDMDMD

House walked into the lab. Susan had stayed to herself the last couple of days, not even coming out of the lab to go to lunch. The last time she had done this she was upset with him after he had the team knock her out so he could do the CT scan. She was probably upset with him again, this time for his interaction with the lab manager. She had told him to stay out of it, but he hadn't and there was no way she hadn't heard about the incident through the very efficient "PPTH Gossip Chain". House had left her alone, but it was time to get their relationship back on track. Susan was like Wilson in that he could do or say whatever he wanted and she would eventually forgive him, though it may take her a few days to blow off steam. She wasn't in the lab, but her class notes were sitting on the desk, so she had come by after she finished lecture. He pulled out his cell phone to and punched her button on speed dial. The phone started ringing – in stereo. He hung up his phone and saw her lab coat hanging on the back of her chair. Her phone was in the pocket. House sat down at her desk and started tried the lower file drawer on her desk where she normally stored her purse; it opened easily which meant that her purse wasn't inside. She must have gone out for lunch. He started to get up from her desk when he noticed a business card sitting on the desk, it was for Dr. James and his extension number was underlined. House smiled a little as he realized she had probably gone to lunch with him. _Good for her_, he thought. Getting out and about was just what she needed to help get her out of her recent depression. Everything he had learned about David James so far pointed to nothing that would make House not want them to see each other.

"I was wondering if you were going to show up," Wilson said as he stood up from behind his desk, "lunch?" House nodded and then two men headed toward the cafeteria. As they entered the elevator, Wilson said, "I saw Susan leaving the hospital with some guy. You know anything?"

"I didn't see him, but I'm guessing it's Dr. James. Susan had his business card sitting out on her desk," House said.

"Dr. James," Wilson said as he tried to think of who that was. "What department does he work in? The name isn't ringing any bells."

"PhD, not an MD – he's on the academic side. He's the department head for Basic Sciences of Allied Health," House explained.

"Nice guy?" Wilson asked.

"Haven't met him, but Cuddy says she could do worse." He said.

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"So, may I ask what's making you think of switching to teaching full time?" David asked after they had gotten their meals from the counter and sat down.

Susan didn't want to go into a lot of detail of the various issues she'd had since she started working at PPTH, "Well, it's like you said before, it's hard to work for Dr. House."

"So, he gives you as much grief as he does everybody else that works with him, relations notwithstanding," David said.

"Actually, No. He's pretty easy on me compared to his fellows and his student, but is has nothing to do with our family ties. I'm not a physician, so he doesn't expect me to provide diagnostic suggestions or assess treatment options and that is where he is the hardest on them. I'm just his lab rat and I run his tests – or as many of them as I can. I've had several instances where I either haven't been familiar with the technology or have had to send out specimens to be analyzed elsewhere."

"Does it upset him when there are procedures that you don't know?" David asked trying to get a feel for what was really going on.

"He says it doesn't, but I know I disappoint him every time it happens. I always try to find alternatives when I can't perform the analysis. I either find somebody in one of the research labs that is familiar with the technique or I send it out. He told me several months ago that he doesn't expect me to know everything, but he does expect me to find ways of getting him the information he needs. But despite what he says, I still feel like I've failed him when I can't do it myself," Susan admitted.

"He means a lot to you," David observed.

Susan nodded, "He and my daughter are the only family I have left," Susan said.

"If you were to switch to teaching full time, what classes would you be interested in teaching?" David asked.

"Well, obviously it would have to be undergraduate level; I only have a master's degree. I've taught several varieties of General Chemistry like the one I'm teaching now for allied health majors and also the standard General Chemistry I and II for science majors as well as the accompanying lab classes. It doesn't really apply here, but I've also taught several darkroom photography classes in the past, though since the time I taught it, everything has switched to digital, so there isn't a lot of need for darkroom chemistry anymore," she explained.

"You like photography?"

"Love it. It's my favorite hobby though I haven't had much time lately to get out and shoot," she said. "I'm thinking of taking a couple of days during spring break to head out for some spring landscape shots."

"What else do you like to do?" David asked, obviously intrigued.

"I like music. I play piano – somewhat. I'm not nearly as good as my daughter and Dr. House, but I manage the basics. I can play well enough to pick up a hymn book and be able to play," she added.

"You like the old hymns?" he asked.

"Yes, but I also like the more modern praise and worship songs as well."

"So, do you go to church?" he asked obviously trying to learn more about her than he needed to for a teaching position.

"Yes," she said without hesitation then added, "That shouldn't be an issue."

"Oh no, it's not. I was just curious," he quickly added. "It's pretty widely known that House is an atheist. I guess I somewhat expected you to be as well."

"He is and he accepts that I'm not. We don't harass each other about it. He knows that I'm here for him and if he ever wants to talk about it, I'm more than willing to sit down with him. He also knows not to belittle me about my beliefs because he's not going to change my mind," Susan said.

David secretly smiled inside. He was glad to hear she wasn't an atheist because he wasn't either and if she was, it would have altered his interest in her and he really did want to get to know her better. Getting back on track David asked her for the truth, "Susan, as much as you don't want to say why you want to leave the lab, I really need to know the reason behind the move."

Susan sighed and leaned back in her chair, "I love my job. I think what I do is important and I enjoy having the opportunity to do all kinds of lab work and not being limited to just chemistry or hematology or histology or whatever. The lab I'm in allows me to be versatile and I really enjoy that. It's just that Dr. House has made lot of enemies over time and it seems that every time I turn around I have to prove myself or fend off someone from using me to get back at him. Like this latest issue I'm having with Chris."

David looked at her a little confused, "Chris?"

"He's the lab manager in the main hospital lab. He's a good part of the reason that Dr. House has his own tech. I guess… no – I know, that House can be a bit of a tyrant and he would terrify the lab techs into running his specimens first and so the turnover in the lab was really high. Chris managed to convince the board that it would be better for everybody if House had his own tech and the board approved it. So, here I am, but now that House has his own tech, Chris likes to make my life difficult by refusing me access to equipment that is in the main lab that that I don't have in mine, trying to terrorize me whenever he sees me near the main lab and then on top of that, this week he hid from me the fact that we were being inspected to try to catch me unprepared; it didn't work by the way," she explained. Susan left out the part about somebody accusing her of being unethical by diagnosing and treating patients. She didn't even want to go into that.

"It sounds like to me it has nothing to do with you personally," David said. "He's trying to get back at House by driving you away the way House drove away his techs."

"Well, he needs to grow up," Susan said.

"I don't disagree with that at all, but then so does House. Listen Susan, I would be happy to have you in the department teaching full time and I know you enjoy teaching, I can tell from your class lectures that you are having a good time. But you also love what you do in the lab and I think a combination of teaching and lab work is perfect for you. I'll talk to Dr. Cuddy, but I'd really like you to think about it before you make a decision. If you want to teach full time, I'll bring you in, but I really don't think that is what you want to do. Promise me you'll think about it before you make a decision," he said.

Susan nodded, "I will."

Lunch was over and it was time to go back. Susan got in her car and headed back to the hospital. Her parking place had been taken, so she spent a little time hunting for a different spot. Finally finding a place that wasn't too far away, she parked and started walking toward the hospital. On her way in she was passed by several of the lab techs walking together who had just finished their shift. They saw Susan walking in and called her over, "That was pretty funny what your boss did the other day."

"I can only imagine. What did he do this time?" she asked.

"You haven't heard?"

"I guess not. I haven't spent much time out of the lab, except to got to class the last few days. So, what happened?" Susan asked.

The techs relayed the entire encounter between Dr. House and Chris, going into great detail how the lab manager tried to hide his wet pants with his lab coat as he left the lab and eventually returned wearing hospital scrubs.

_Wonderful_, thought Susan sarcastically. _I wonder what I'll have to put up with because of this stunt._ Susan shook her head. She should have known that he wouldn't leave it alone. She and the girls went their separate ways. Even though she dreaded the consequences of House's actions, she had to work hard to suppress a smile at the image of Chris trying to hide his wet pants. There was no doubt that House could be intimidating when he wanted to be, handicap or not.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

"We need to talk," said the voice on the phone. "Come down to my office as soon as you can," and then the phone went dead. House raised his eyebrow in curiosity and left his office to head to Cuddy's.

House stared at his feet, bouncing his cane on the floor in Cuddy's office.

"Tell me what you're thinking House." Cuddy said.

"Do you really think she wants to leave?" House asked.

"I don't know her as well as you do. What do you think?" she asked.

"I think it doesn't matter what I think," he said as he stood up to leave.

"You should talk to her," Cuddy said.

"She's going to do whatever she wants. My talking to her isn't going to make any difference," he said.

"You don't know that."

House stared off into the distance before turning around and heading out the door. "I may not be over tonight," he said as he walked out.

Cuddy watched him leave with his shoulders slumped and leaning a little more heavily on his cane than he had been in a while. She hated to see him like this. Between their relationship and Susan's arrival at PPTH, he was as happy as she had ever seen him, even before the infarction. If Susan decided to leave, he would be devastated.

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Wilson's door was locked. House knocked, "It's locked," came the voice from inside. House didn't say anything and left. Wilson continued working, but after a moment put his pen down. He's expected a response and having gotten nothing, he started to worry. He got up and opened his door. Nobody was there. He walked down the corridor and turned to go to House's office, "Did you knock on my door?" he asked.

"It was locked," House said.

"That's never stopped you before," Wilson said noticing the look on House's face. "What's wrong?" he asked as he sat down.

House didn't say anything for a moment, "Susan wants to leave the lab."

"No, Susan loves the lab," Wilson countered.

"Apparently she loves teaching more," House said.

"Have you talked to her?" Wilson asked.

"No," House said. "There isn't much point. She's made her decision."

"You need to talk to her," Wilson said.

"She doesn't want to talk to me; she's been holed up in her lab for two days," said House

There was a knock at the door, "Dr. House?"

House looked up and recognized Dr. James standing in the door.

"Do you have a moment?" he asked.

Wilson excused himself and David came in and shut the door behind him, "May I sit down?"

House gestured to the chair in front of his desk and waiting for David to begin the conversation, "I had lunch with Susan today."

"To talk her into leaving the lab," House said. "Thanks," he added sarcastically.

"No, I listened – something you should do more often," David said. House glared at him, "What do you want?" he asked.

"I'd like to get to know Susan a little better," he said.

"What are you telling me for?" House asked. "She's a grown woman; she can make her own decisions."

"I know that, but I also know your reputation and if you don't like something, you'll do anything in your power to stop it," David said, "and I know how Susan feels about you and..."

"And you want me to put in a good word for you," House said completing the thought.

"Well, yes actually," David said.

"I don't know you and so far all you've done is encourage her to leave," House said. "Why would I want to put in a good word for you?"

"I didn't encourage her to leave, House. I encouraged her to do exactly what she is doing, but I also told her that if she did decide to leave lab work that I would bring her on full time in my department," he explained. "If she does decide to leave the lab, she wouldn't be leaving you – just the crap that you've indirectly put her through. She wouldn't even be leaving the campus." David stood up to leave, "You know she really does care about you. I don't know what's going on inside her head right now because she seems to think she's some kind of a disappointment, but she loves you and she loves what she does. She feels fulfilled working in your department, but she's tired of all the crap that people send her way because of your behavior. In most cases, you reap what you sow, but for Susan _she_ reaps what _you_ sow. She's an easy target for your enemies, try thinking about that the next time you piss someone off."

House watched him walk out the door. Well, the man didn't have any problem saying what was on his mind, which was a point in his favor as far as House was concerned. House thought about what David said, _"She seems to think she's some kind of a disappointment."_ It was a recurring theme practically all month long – all _month_ long. House suddenly pulled out his copy of her personnel file that included information that he had found on her during his investigation as well as her employment documents. He read through the different documents he had found. Her mother died in February 2003, but he didn't know what from. He already knew that Jeff had died in February and of course there was Valentines that dredged up a lot of hurtful memories. He read through her resume – she was laid off from that manager position in February 2001. February didn't seem to be her month. _I got her drunk in February, so she can add that to the list now,_ he thought to himself. _Hmm, she finished her graduate program in February 1990 – that was one positive thing_, he thought. He needed to know what happened to her mother. House got up and went to the lab. Susan wasn't there. He went around her desk and tried to pull her drawer, it was locked. OK, so she was still around the hospital somewhere. He tried to call her; the phone rang – in stereo again. She left her phone in her lab jacket again. He pulled out her phone and put it in his pocket. House stood staring into space and then he smirked, he knew where she was.

"Should have realized you would find me out here," Susan said when House walked over to the picnic table.

"It's not one of your more original hiding places," he said quoting her from earlier while handing her cell phone to her.

Susan chuckled under her breath as she took the phone and put it in her pocket, "It's a nice day – one of those rare February days in the 70's. May as well enjoy it, it's going to be cold again next week."

"How did your mother die?" House asked out of the blue as he sat down next to her on the seat facing away from the table and looked out over the pond.

Susan looked over at him for a moment and then looked back ahead watching the ducks swim around fishing the water with their beaks for something to eat, "Alcohol poisoning," she said. "I found her in the bathroom on the floor where she'd passed out from drinking."

"So she was an alcoholic," House said.

"No, she wasn't. She was upset about something; nobody knew what and decided to drink herself into oblivion. I don't know if she intended to kill herself that way, but I found an empty glass container of 180 proof alcohol on the floor next to her. She had drunk the entire two quarts in one sitting. She asphyxiated while I was in the backyard with Jeff and the rest of the family. She was still warm when I found her, if I had come in even a half hour sooner, I could have saved her," Susan said, clearly blaming herself for not getting to her mother in time.

"So that's why you don't drink," House said.

"That's part of it," Susan admitted, "alcoholism was common in her family and she had chosen not to drink because she saw the damage it caused to her family members and their families. I've always assumed that there might be something in our genetic makeup that makes us venerable to addictive behavior since there were so many alcoholics in our family, so I avoided all vices to avoid addiction. I don't drink, but I also don't smoke and I've never tried drugs. I just don't want to risk it." Susan explained.

They sat together quite for a moment staring out over the pond when House broke the silence, "Susan, do you really want to leave the lab?"

"I'm tired of screwing up Greg. I can't do anything right, the only thing that seems to be going right is my class," she said.

"You're not screwing things up. Do you realize that our lab passed inspection with no violations? The main lab had six violations that they have to correct." House countered.

"That stuff is easy; it's just a matter of documenting everything. Life is hard and I've managed to screw up my entire life. I can't do anything well no matter what I try to do and how hard I try to do it," Susan said.

"You have a master's degree in chemistry, how is that a screw up?" he asked.

Susan looked over at him and sighed, "You know, if you go to med school and you go to class like you are supposed to, but you make mediocre grades, do you know what they call you when you graduate?" House just looked at her, "They still call you 'doctor'." In graduate school, you can go to class, maintain a B average, because C's aren't allowed, and do everything you are supposed to do, but if someone on your graduate committee takes a dislike to you, it doesn't matter what your grades are, they'll send you packing. I have a master's because I don't have a PhD, not because I went to grad school with the purpose of getting a masters degree. I should have a PhD, I did everything I was supposed to do, carried a B+ average, passed all of my cumulative exams with flying colors, but one professor on my committee decided he didn't like my dissertation despite it having been approved by the committee and since the committee vote wasn't unanimous at my dissertation, the school awarded me with a master's degree instead of a PhD."

"Were you married then?" House asked.

"Yes, but we didn't have Laura yet," Susan said.

"What did your husband do when you went home and told him what happened?" House asked afraid of the answer.

"He shrugged his shoulders and didn't say anything," she said. "He was never a big fan of me going to graduate school. He said I should have been working and making money instead of wasting money to go to school. He was probably right; it ended up being a big waste of time and money."

"Susan, you enjoy teaching your class and you couldn't do that at the college level without having a master's degree." House paused

"I know, that is one good thing," Susan responded.

"Susan, if you really want to teach full time, I'll support you in that, but I'd really like you to stay with me, in the lab," House admitted.

"I keep screwing up. I'm tired of disappointing you again and again," Susan said.

"You're not screwing up and you're certainly not a disappointment," House said.

"What about the testing without ordering issue and that bogus diagnosing accusation?" Susan asked. "That's just one more thing out of several at this point – and what about all the personnel issues I keep having? Chris hates me and I haven't done anything to him; before that it was Jeffrey and Martha. Who knows what's going to happen next, especially after the incontinence issue," Susan exclaimed.

"Heard about that did you," House asked.

"Who hasn't, it's all over the hospital? It is kinda funny though," she admitted after a moment.

"Susan, those issues are not your issues, they're mine. I allowed the pro-active testing, I even encouraged it. I'm the one that has hurt or insulted people and they are taking it out on you because they won't fight back to my face. It's my fault, not yours." House said.

"I lost my temper the other day," Susan said.

"And you apologized for it. Susan, February is a tough month for you; most everything bad that's ever happened to you seems to have happened in February. I don't blame you for losing your temper, it's been a rough month and I didn't help matters any by trying to solve your puzzle behind your back, I should have trusted you when you said you were just a little down and I'm sorry," House paused. "I've learned my lesson, but you have a lesson to learn as well, Sis."

Susan looked at him, surprised as him calling her 'Sis'.

"You need to let go of the past. Despite what you think, there is nothing wrong with you and you are not a disappointment. You never have been. I didn't know you the better part of your life, but I knew you when you were little and I've known you for the nearly all of the past year. You're bright and you're beautiful, not just attractive – you're beautiful." He held up his hand to shush her before she retorted back, "No, don't say it. I'm doing the talking right now. I see you turn heads down every hall you walk, but you're oblivious to it. You've got yourself so convinced that you are used up and past your prime that you don't see your own potential. My old patient, Georgia, called you, "Arm Candy" that day in the clinic and you are. I think you need to give yourself a chance. Jeff was abusive Susan. He may not have physically hurt you, but he did hurt you emotionally. You didn't deserve that then and you don't deserve to keep beating yourself down now."

Susan looked down at the wedding ring she still wore. She looked up at House and then back down to her hand, "Arm Candy, huh?" she asked.

House nodded, "Yup"

Susan took the ring off of her finger, twirled it around in her fingers as she looked at it and then handed it to House. Susan knew it was past time to take it off and she didn't want to be tempted to put it back on, but she didn't want to get rid of it either. "Do me a favor and hang on to that for me for a while?"

House smirked, "I'll do better than that." He took the ring from her and threw it as far as he could into the pond.

Susan mouth dropped open as she watched it fly through the air and land in the pond, the ripples moving out from the center from where it splashed and the ducks swimming away from the noise, "I was actually thinking of giving that to Laura at some point," she said after a moment.

"Oops," he said as he looked her direction guiltily.

Susan smiled and shook her head. House stood up and offered her his left arm. Susan took his arm and House escorted her back toward the hospital, "Hey, don't tell anybody what I told you, OK? I wouldn't want anybody to think that I actually said something nice to somebody."

"Your secret's safe with me," Susan said as they slowly made their way. "So, what do you think about Dr. James….?"

_Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed the story. If people are interested, I'll start another episode soon. Let me know what you think – good or bad._


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